title: Vegetative reproduction

text: In a sense, this process is not one of reproduction but one of survival and expansion of biomass of the individual. When an individual organism increases in size via cell multiplication and remains intact, the process is called "vegetative growth". However, in vegetative reproduction, the new plants that result are new individuals in almost every respect except genetic. Of considerable interest is how this process appears to reset the aging clock.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: As previously mentioned, plants vegetatively propagate both artificially and naturally. Most common methods of natural vegetative reproduction involve the development of a new plant from specialized structures of a mature plant. In addition to adventitious roots, roots that arise from plant structures other than the root, such as stems or leaves, modified stems, leaves and roots play an important role in plants' ability to naturally propagate. The most common modified stems, leaves and roots that allow for vegetative propagation are:


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Also known as stolons, runners are modified stems that, unlike rhizomes, grow from existing stems just below the soil surface. As they are propagated, the buds on the modified stems produce roots and stems. Those buds are more separated than the ones found on the rhizome.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Bulbs are inflated parts of the stem within which lie the central shoots of new plants. They are typically underground and are surrounded by plump and layered leaves that provide nutrients to the new plant.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Tubers develop from either the stem or the root. Stem tubers grow from rhizomes or runners that swell from storing nutrients while root tubers propagate from roots that are modified to store nutrients and get too large and produce a new plant.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Examples of stem tubers are potatoes and yams and examples of root tubers are sweet potatoes and dahlias.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Corms are solid enlarged underground stems that store nutrients in their fleshy and solid stem tissue and are surrounded by papery leaves. Corms differ from bulbs in that their centers consists of solid tissue while bulbs consist of layered leaves.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Also known as root sprouts, suckers are plant stems that arise from buds on the base of the parent plant's stems or roots.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Plantlets are miniature structures that arise from meristem in leaf margins that eventually develops roots and drop from the leaves they grew on.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: An example of a plant that uses plantlets is the "Bryophyllum daigremontianum" (syn. "Kalanchoe daigremontianum"), which is also known as "mother of thousands" for its many plantlets.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Keikis are additional offshoots which develop on vegetative stems or flower stalks of several orchids genera.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Examples of plants that use keikis are the "Phalaenopsis", "Epidendrum", and "Dendrobium" genera of orchids.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Apomixis is the process of asexual reproduction through seed, in the absence of meiosis and fertilization, generating clonal progeny of maternal origin.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Vegetative propagation of particular cultivars that have desirable characteristics is very common practice. It is used by farmers and horticulturalists to produce better crops with desirable qualities. The most common methods of artificial vegetative propagation are:


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: A cutting is a part of the plant, usually a stem or a leaf, is cut off and planted. Adventitious roots grow from cuttings and a new plant eventually develops. Usually those cuttings are treated with hormones before being planted to induce growth.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Grafting involves attaching a scion, or a desired cutting, to the stem of another plant called stock that remains rooted in the ground. Eventually both tissue systems become grafted or integrated and a plant with the characteristics of the grafted plant develops, e.g. mango, guava, etc.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Layering is a process which includes the bending of plant branches or stems so that they touch the ground and are covered with soil. Adventitious roots develop from the underground part of the plant, which is known as the layer. This method of vegetative reproduction also occurs naturally. Another similar method, air layering, involved the scraping and replanting of tree branches which develop into trees. Examples are Jasmine and Bougainvillea.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: Suckers grow and form a dense compact mat that is attached to the parent plant. Too many suckers can lead to smaller crop size, so excess suckers are pruned, and mature suckers are transplanted to a new area where they develop into new plants.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: In tissue culture, plant cells are taken from various parts of the plant and are cultured and nurtured in a sterilized medium. The mass of developed tissue, known as the callus, is then cultured in a hormone-ladened medium and eventually develops into plantlets which are then planted and eventually develop into grown plants.


title: Vegetative reproduction

text: An offset is the lower part of a single culm with the rhizome axis basal to it and its roots. Planting of these is the most convenient way of propagating bamboo.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: Christian I (February 1426 – 21 May 1481) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), Norway (1450–1481) and Sweden (1457–1464). From 1460 to 1481, he was also duke of Schleswig (within Denmark) and count (after 1474, duke) of Holstein (within the Holy Roman Empire). He was the first king of the House of Oldenburg.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: In the power vacuum that arose following the death of King Christopher of Bavaria (1416–1448) without a direct heir, Sweden elected Charles VIII of Sweden (14081470) king with the intent to reestablish the union under a Swedish king. Charles was elected king of Norway in the following year. However the counts of Holstein made the Danish Privy Council appoint Christian as king of Denmark. His subsequent accessions to the thrones of Norway (in 1450) and Sweden (in 1457), restored the unity of the Kalmar Union for a short period. In 1463, Sweden broke away from the union and Christian's attempt at a reconquest resulted in his defeat by the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Elder at the Battle of Brunkeberg in 1471.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: In 1460, following the death of his uncle, Duke Adolphus of Schleswig, Count of Holstein, Christian also became Duke of Schleswig and Count of Holstein.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: Christian I was born in February 1426 in Oldenburg in Northern Germany as the eldest son of Count Dietrich of Oldenburg by his second wife, Helvig of Holstein (died 1436). Christian had two younger brothers, Maurice (1428–1464) and Gerhard (1430–1500), and one sister Adelheid.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: Through his father, he belonged to the House of Oldenburg, a comital family established since the 12th century in an area west of the River Weser in north-western Germany. Based on the two strongholds of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, the family had gradually expanded its rule over the neighbouring Frisian tribes of the area. Christian's father was called "the Fortunate" as he had reunited and expanded the family's territory. Christian's mother, Helvig, was a daughter of Gerhard VI, Count of Holstein, and a sister of Adolphus, Duke of Schleswig. Through his mother, Christian was also a cognatic descendant of King Eric V of Denmark through his second daughter Richeza (died 1308) and also a cognatic descendant of King Abel of Denmark through his daughter Sophie. Through his father, Christian was a cognatic descendant of King Eric IV of Denmark through his daughter Sophia. Christian thus descended from the three surviving sons of Valdemar II and his second wife Berengaria of Portugal.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: At the death of their father in 1440, Christian and his brothers jointly succeeded Dietrich as Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. Christian was raised by his uncle, Duke Adolphus of Schleswig, Count of Holstein (1401–1459) as the childless duke wished for his young nephew to become his heir, and also succeeded in having Christian elected as his successor in the Duchy of Schleswig.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: In January 1448, King Christopher of Denmark, Sweden and Norway died suddenly and without natural heirs. His death resulted in the break-up of the union of the three kingdoms, as Denmark and Sweden went their separate ways and Norway's affiliation was unclear. The vacant Danish throne was first offered by the Council of the Realm to Duke Adolphus of Schleswig, being the most prominent feudal lord of Danish dominions. The duke declined and recommended his nephew, Count Christian of Oldenburg. Before being elected, Christian had to promise to obey to the Constitutio Valdemariana, a provision in the ascension promissory of King Valdemar III of Denmark, that promised that in the future, the same person could never be both ruler of the Duchy of Schleswig and Denmark simultaneously. The council also demanded that Christian should marry dowager queen Dorothea of Brandenburg (ca 1430–1495), widow of his predecessor King Christopher III. On 1 September 1448, after signing his ascension promissory, count Christian was elected to the Danish throne as king Christian I at the assembly in Viborg. His coronation was held on 28 October 1449, in the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, at which occasion his marriage with dowager queen Dorothea was also celebrated.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: Meanwhile, Sweden had on 20 June 1448 elected Charles (VIII) as king of Sweden. Norway was now faced with the choice between a union with Denmark or Sweden, or electing a separate king. The latter option was quickly discarded, and a power-struggle ensued between the supporters of Christian of Denmark and Charles of Sweden. The Norwegian Council of the Realm was divided. In February 1449, a part of the Council declared in favour of Charles as king, but on 15 June the same year, a different group of councillors paid homage to Christian. On 20 November, Charles was crowned king of Norway in Trondheim.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: However, the Swedish nobility now took steps to avoid war with Denmark. In June 1450, the Swedish Council of the Realm forced Charles to renounce his claim on Norway to King Christian. In the summer of 1450, Christian sailed to Norway with a large fleet, and on 2 August he was crowned king of Norway in Trondheim. On 29 August, a union treaty between Denmark and Norway was signed in Bergen. Norway had of old been a hereditary monarchy, but this had become less and less a reality, as at the last royal successions, hereditary claims had been bypassed for political reasons. It was now explicitly stated that Norway, as well as Denmark, was an elective monarchy. The treaty stipulated that Denmark and Norway should have the same king in perpetuity, and that he would be elected among the legitimate sons of the previous king, if such existed.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: Charles Knutsson became increasingly unpopular as king of Sweden, and was driven into exile in 1457. Christian achieved his aim of being elected as king of Sweden, thus re-establishing the Kalmar Union. He received the power from temporary Swedish regents Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson Oxenstierna and lord Erik Axelsson Tott. However, Sweden being volatile and split by factions (benefits of union being against nationalistic benefits), his reign there ended in 1464 when Kettil Karlsson Vasa, Bishop of Linköping was installed as the next regent. Charles Knutsson was recalled as King of Sweden, although he was later exiled a second time, recalled again and died during his third term as king. Christian's final attempt at regaining Sweden ended in a total military failure at the Battle of Brunkeberg (outside Stockholm) October 1471 where he was defeated by forces on Swedish regent Sten Sture the Elder (). Christian maintained his claim to the Swedish kingdom up to his death in 1481.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: In 1460 King Christian also became Duke of Schleswig, a Danish fief, and Count of Holstein-Rendsburg, a Saxe-Lauenburgian subfief within the Holy Roman Empire. Christian inherited Holstein-Rendsburg and Schleswig after a short "interregnum" as the eldest son of the sister of late Duke Adolphus VIII, Duke of Schleswig (Southern Jutland) and Count of Holstein, of the Schauenburg fürst clan, who died 4 December 1459, without heirs. Christian's succession was confirmed by the Estates of the Realm (nobility and representatives) of these duchies in Ribe 5 March 1460 (Treaty of Ribe). In 1474 Lauenburg's liege lord Emperor Frederick III elevated Christian I as Count of Holstein to Duke of Holstein, thus becoming an immediate imperial vassal (see imperial immediacy).


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: Christian's personal territory was at its largest in 1460–1464, before the loss of Sweden. However, many parts of his realm wanted to govern themselves locally, and there were constant struggles. Denmark was his most important center of power.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: In 1474 Christian travelled two times: in April he went to Milan (his stay in Lombardy is celebrated by frescoes by Il Romanino in the Malpaga Castle) and Rome, in Italy, where he met Pope Sixtus IV. In the autumn same year he visited Charles of Burgundy, acting as intermediary between him and future emperor Maximilian I. He stayed in Burgundy for several months, moving to the Netherlands in the early 1475.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: Acting on a permission from Pope Sixtus IV in 1475 to establish a university in Denmark, the University of Copenhagen was inaugurated by Christian on 1 June 1479.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: King Christian died at Copenhagen Castle on 21 May 1481 at the age of 55. He was interred at the Chapel of the Magi at Roskilde Cathedral, a richly decorated chapel he and Queen Dorothea had erected to serve as a family sepulchral chapel for the House of Oldenburg. The burials of Christian I and Queen Dorothea are marked with a pair of simple stones, as the chapel itself was to be considered their sepulchral monument.


title: Christian I of Denmark

text: The dynasty he founded, the House of Oldenburg, remains on the throne of Denmark. It was on the throne of Norway until 1818, returning there again from 1905, and also on the throne of Sweden during Christian's reign there and those of his son and grandson, but also 1751–1818.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Amnesia: Rebirth is a 2020 survival horror video game developed and published by Frictional Games. It was released for Windows, Linux, and PlayStation 4 on 20 October 2020, for Amazon Luna on 22 October 2021, and for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 20 October 2022. It is the third installment in the franchise and serves as a sequel to "" (2010). The game received generally favorable reviews upon release.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Like "The Dark Descent", the game is played from a first-person perspective. The player assumes control of Tasi Trianon, who must wander through desert caves and ancient tombs in order to find the whereabouts of her companions. The game is dimly lit, and players must use light sources, such as Tasi's own fuel lamp, to see clearly and find ways to progress. Players can also scavenge matches, which can be used to light up mounted torches and candles. Players also need to solve various puzzles to progress in the game, and read the notes left by non-playable characters to know more about the story.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Like the first game, Tasi's fear level would build up gradually. Fear would overwhelm Tasi when she walks completely in the dark, causing her to hallucinate and hear whispers in her head. Grotesque images will also pop up in the screen. Solving puzzles, hiding from monsters, and managing light sources can control her fear, preventing such from happening. The game does not feature any combat system and when Tasi encounters a supernatural creature, she could either run or hide. Unlike the first game, when the player is killed, the game would not reload an earlier save point. Instead, it will bring the player a bit forward, allowing the player to skip the monster encounter entirely during the player's second attempt.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: The game is set in March 1937, and follows Anastasie "Tasi" Trianon, a French drafter on an expedition in colonial Africa. After her plane crash-lands in Algeria, she wakes up to discover that her companions are missing, with no recollection of what happened. Following the trail of her expedition, Tasi realizes that she is pregnant and has come into possession of a Traveler's Amulet, an alien device that allows her to travel to an alien world. During this time, she finds her husband Salim's corpse, having died from the crash.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Tasi reaches an abandoned French fort and discovers an unknown force has slaughtered its garrison. She contacts an expedition survivor, Dr. Metzier, who instructs her to head to a nearby village. Tasi travels under the fort and encounters mutated ghouls that stalk the tunnels. She makes her way out but is caught in a cave-in and falls into ancient ruins that belonged to a highly advanced, but now extinct, society. As she studies the ruins, Tasi learns that the facility was built by an alien race dubbed the Gate Builders, who could traverse worlds and extend their lives thanks to vitae, a substance obtained by torturing humans on a mass scale. A failed plot to end the suffering caused the Gate on their homeworld to destroy itself, wiping out the Gate Builders and spreading the Shadow, a dangerous force that manifests in red tumor-like growths. Tasi also comes across signs of a led by Professor Herbert. To her horror, Tasi discovers that one of her expedition members, Leon, has been turned into a ghoul. She later rescues another expedition member, Richard, but kills him in a rage when he attempts to leave her to die.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Tasi activates a teleporter in the ruins to transport herself to the village, but finds it deserted and goes into labor. She encounters expedition member Yasmin, who in the process of turning into a ghoul had killed the villagers. Metzier arrives and kills Yasmin. Tasi enters labor, assisted by Metzier, and gives birth to a girl, Amari. Metzier takes Amari, claiming she is needed to reverse the curse causing them to become ghouls. Tasi chases after Metzier, who uses the Traveler's Amulet to travel to the Gate Builders' world.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: During the pursuit, Tasi recovers her memories. Shortly after the plane crash, the Empress of the Gate Builders approached the expedition and brought them to the Gate Builders' world. The Empress, longing to be a mother after vitae treatment for an affliction rendered her infertile, gave them the Traveler's Amulet and promised to save them if Tasi gave her Amari. Tasi, still traumatized by the loss of her previous daughter Alys, refused. The Empress then tricked the expedition into drinking from a fountain that inflicted the curse, before sending them back to Earth.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Tasi catches up to Metzier and kills him. The Empress warns Tasi that Amari is afflicted with the same illness that killed Alys. She pleads with Tasi to allow Amari to stay with her, as she can provide vitae to Amari to suppress her illness, allowing her to live a full life. Tasi is left with three choices.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: "Amnesia: Rebirth" was developed by Frictional Games. It was their first "Amnesia" game since "The Dark Descent" in 2010 and their first game since "Soma" in 2015. While in development, the team attempted to identify the strengths and the shortcomings of "The Dark Descent" and "Soma", and decided that "Rebirth" would keep "Soma"s focus of having an overarching narrative, and "Amnesia"s "lower-level gameplay". The team chose to return to the "Amnesia" franchise because they felt that it would shorten the game's development cycle, as the team only need to refine the franchise's established elements without having the need to start anew. The team also felt that "Amnesia" could expand to many other settings, as indicated by the in-game notes in the original games. Despite this, the game is not a direct sequel to "The Dark Descent". Players do not need to play the first game in order to understand the stories, but the game would have a lot more connections with the original game than "A Machine for Pigs", which was developed externally by The Chinese Room.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: According to Thomas Grip, the game's creative director, the game explores the idea of "survival". Instead of relying on short-term scares, the team believed that the game's overarching theme and narrative should be what haunts the player. The team chose a desert setting as the game's main setting, as it allows the team to create more diverse environments, and allows players to appreciate moments of beauty and spectacle, which can then be used to contrast the more claustrophobic areas and the sense of dread the game hopes to deliver. "Skeletons on the Zahara" served as a major source of inspiration for the team. Learning from their experiences creating "Soma", the game story unfolds as the player progresses, unlike in "The Dark Descent" whose story is mostly delivered through text-based collectibles and focuses entirely on the past.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Frictional Games announced "Rebirth" on 6 March 2020. The game was released for Windows, Linux and PlayStation 4 on 20 October 2020. It was then released for Amazon Luna on 22 October 2021. Versions for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S were released on 20 October 2022.


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: "Amnesia: Rebirth" received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Ben Reeves of "Game Informer" noted that "Praising "Amnesia: Rebirth" as a horror experience is easy." specifically noting the "superb environmental design and sound work". As a game, however, it comes up short in a lot of areas" specifically noting the puzzles ruined the tension of the game and that the goals of the game are often unclear with maze-like rooms that make you easily miss your target. Phil Hornshaw of "GameSpot" echoed this statement, stating that "none of the puzzles are especially difficult, it's definitely possible to get stalled here and there as you search for a solution that's not immediately intuitive." Hornshaw declared that the game was "at its best when Tasi's personal journey intersects with the supernatural goings-on as it explores the responsibilities of motherhood." while noting "the game delivers the illusion of more agency than it actually offers--there are only a couple of big choices along the way and it's not clear they actually make much difference in terms of how the story unfolds."


title: Amnesia: Rebirth

text: Rick Lane of "The Guardian" described the game as "an ambitious tale that invokes body horror, cosmic horror, and themes of colonialism, as well as mental-health traumas such as bereavement and loss of sanity" but found the story suffered from thinly drawn out secondary characters, specifically noting that "Tasi's maudlin relationship with Salim is a particular weak point." The review concluded that the game's combination of "light puzzle-solving with evading the twitching creatures who lurk in the game's oppressive darkness, and though the puzzles are intelligently constructed (a lengthy sequence set in an abandoned Foreign Legion fortress is a highlight), they lack the elaborate tactility of Frictional's masterful sci-fi horror, "Soma"."


title: Stan Winston

text: Stanley Winston (April 7, 1946 – June 15, 2008) was an American television and film special make-up effects creator, best known for his work in the "Terminator" series, the first three "Jurassic Park" films, "Aliens", "The Thing", the first two "Predator" films, "Inspector Gadget", "Iron Man", and "Edward Scissorhands". He won four Academy Awards for his work.


title: Stan Winston

text: Winston, a frequent collaborator with directors James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton, owned several effects studios, including Stan Winston Digital. The established areas of expertise for Winston were in makeup, puppets and practical effects, but he had recently expanded his studio to encompass digital effects as well.


title: Stan Winston

text: Winston was born on April 7, 1946, in Richmond, Virginia to a Jewish family, where he graduated from Washington-Lee High School in 1964. He studied painting and sculpture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, from which he graduated in 1968.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1969, after attending California State University, Long Beach, Winston moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actor. Struggling to find an acting job, he began a makeup apprenticeship at Walt Disney Studios.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1972, Winston established his own company, Stan Winston Studio, and in 1973 he won an Emmy Award for his effects work on the 1972 telefilm "Gargoyles". Over the next seven years, Winston continued to receive Emmy Award nominations for work on projects and won another for 1974's "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman". Winston also created the Wookiee costumes for the 1978 "Star Wars Holiday Special". In 1978 Winston was the Special Make-up Designer for "The Wiz".


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1982, Winston received his first Oscar nomination for "Heartbeeps", by which time he had set up his own studio. However, it was his ground-breaking work with Rob Bottin on his update of the science fiction horror classic "The Thing" that year that brought him to prominence in Hollywood. He also worked on supervised vision work on "The Entity". Between then, he contributed some visual effects to "Friday the 13th Part III", in which he made a slightly different head sculpt of Jason in an unused ending.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1983 he also worked on the short-lived television series Manimal, for which he created the panther and hawk transformation effects.


title: Stan Winston

text: Winston reached a new level of fame in 1984 when James Cameron's "The Terminator" premiered. The movie was a surprise hit, and Winston's work in bringing the titular metallic killing machine to life led to many new projects and additional collaborations with Cameron. In fact, Winston won his first Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1986 on James Cameron's next movie, "Aliens".


title: Stan Winston

text: Over the next few years, Winston and his company received more accolades for its work on many more Hollywood films, including Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands", John McTiernan's "Predator", "Alien Nation", "The Monster Squad", and "Predator 2".


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1988, Winston made his directorial debut with the horror movie "Pumpkinhead", and won Best First Time Director at the Paris Film Festival. His next directing project was the child-friendly "A Gnome Named Gnorm" (1990), starring Anthony Michael Hall.


title: Stan Winston

text: James Cameron drafted Winston and his team once again in 1990, this time for "". "T2" premiered in the summer of 1991, and Winston's work on this box office hit won him two more Academy Awards for Best Makeup and Best Visual Effects.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1992, he was nominated for another Tim Burton film, the superhero sequel "Batman Returns", where he designed the makeup prosthetics for Danny DeVito's Penguin. Additionally, his studio was commissioned to create robotic penguin puppets that were used throughout the film.


title: Stan Winston

text: Winston turned his attention from super villains and cyborgs to dinosaurs when Steven Spielberg enlisted his help to bring Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" to the cinema screen. In 1993, the movie became a blockbuster and Winston won another Oscar for Best Visual Effects.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1993, Winston, Cameron and ex-ILM General Manager Scott Ross co-founded Digital Domain, one of the foremost digital and visual effects studios in the world. In 1998, after the box office success of "Titanic", Cameron and Winston severed their working relationship with the company and resigned from its board of directors.


title: Stan Winston

text: Winston and his team continued to provide effects work for many more films and expanded their work into animatronics. Some of Winston's notable animatronics work can be found in "The Ghost and the Darkness" and "", James Cameron's 3-D continuation of the "Terminator" series for the Universal Studios theme parks. One of Winston's most ambitious animatronics projects was Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", which earned Winston another Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 1996, Winston directed and co-produced the longest music video of all time, "Ghosts", which was based on an original concept of Michael Jackson and Stephen King. The long-form music video presented a number of never before seen visual effects, and promoted music from "", which went on to become the biggest selling remix album of all time (13 million).


title: Stan Winston

text: In 2001, Winston, together with Colleen Camp and Samuel Z. Arkoff's son, Lou Arkoff, produced a series of made-for-cable films for Cinemax and HBO. The five films, referred to as "Creature Features", were inspired by the titles of AIP monster movies from the 1950s — i.e., "Earth vs. the Spider" (1958), "How to Make a Monster" (1958), "Day the World Ended" (1955), "The She-Creature" (1956), and "Teenage Caveman" (1958) — but had completely different plots.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 2002 Winston helped to launch a new comic line, Stan Winston's Realm Of The Claw / Mutant Earth which was a flip book and ran for 4 issues. Stan Winston's Trakk Monster Hunter came out in 2003 and ran for 2 issues. These were published by Image Comics.


title: Stan Winston

text: In 2003, Winston was invited by the Smithsonian Institution to speak about his life and career in a public presentation sponsored by The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The presentation took place on November 15, 2003, at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.


title: Stan Winston

text: By April 2005, Winston said the film was on hold. The film would eventually be released in 2015 titled "Jurassic World".


title: Stan Winston

text: At the time of his death, Winston was working on the fourth "Terminator" film, "Terminator Salvation", as well as frequent collaborator James Cameron's film "Avatar". Winston designed the original monsters that appeared in the Midway game "The Suffering" and its sequel, "".


title: Stan Winston

text: Stan Winston died on June 15, 2008, in Malibu, California, after suffering for seven years from multiple myeloma. A spokeswoman reported that he "died peacefully at home surrounded by family." Winston was with his wife and two children, actor Matt Winston and Debbie Winston. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a public speech about his death, and Jon Favreau dedicated his Spike TV Scream Award to him upon receiving the award for Best Sci-Fi Movie for "Iron Man". "Terminator Salvation" is dedicated to both Winston and Joseph R. Kubicek Sr, with the dedication appearing at both the beginning and end of the film. After his death, his four supervisors (Shane Mahan, John Rosengrant, Alan Scott, Lindsay Macgowan) founded and built their own studio, Legacy Effects, named to honor his memory.


title: Stan Winston

text: In addition, the Winston family founded the Stan Winston School of Character Arts to "preserve Stan's legacy by inspiring and fostering creativity in a new generation of character creators."


title: Populous (company)

text: Populous is a global architectural and design practice specializing in sports facilities, arenas and convention centers, as well as the planning and design of major special events.


title: Populous (company)

text: Populous was created through a management buyout in January 2009, becoming independently owned and operated. It is reported to be one of the largest architecture firms in the world. Populous formerly operated as HOK Sport Venue Event, which was part of the HOK Group.


title: Populous (company)

text: In 1983, HOK under Jerry Sincoff created a sports group (initially called the Sports Facilities Group and later changed to HOK Sport Venue Event). The firm initially consisted of eight architects in Kansas City, and grew to employ 185 people by 1996.


title: Populous (company)

text: On several projects, HOK Sport had teamed with international design practice LOBB Partnership, which maintained offices in London, England, and Brisbane, Australia. On HOK Sport's 15th anniversary in November 1998, the firm merged with LOBB. The new practice retained headquarters in all three cities.


title: Populous (company)

text: The Kansas City, Missouri, office was first based in the city's Garment District in the Lucas Place office building. In 2005, it moved into its headquarters at 300 Wyandotte in the River Market neighborhood in a new building it designed, on land developed as an urban renewal project through tax incentives from the city's Planned Industrial Expansion Authority. It was the first major company to relocate to the neighborhood in several decades. In March 2009, HOK Sport Venue Event changed its name to Populous after a managers' buyout by HOK Group.


title: Populous (company)

text: In October 2015, Populous relocated to its new Americas headquarters at the newly renovated Board of Trade building at 4800 Main street near the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City.


title: Populous (company)

text: The company is one of several Kansas City-based sports design firms that trace their roots to Kivett and Myers which designed the Truman Sports Complex which was one of the first modern large single purpose sports stadiums (previously, stadiums were designed for multipurpose use). Other firms with sports design presence in Kansas City that trace their roots to Kivett include Ellerbe Becket Inc. and HNTB Corp. 360 Architecture is also based in Kansas City.


title: Populous (company)

text: Populous is credited for spearheading a new era of baseball park design in the 1990s, beginning with Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. At Camden Yards, and in other stadiums built by Populous soon thereafter, such as Coors Field in Denver and Progressive Field in Cleveland, the ballpark was designed to incorporate aesthetic elements of the city's history and older "classic ballparks." Camden Yards's red brick facade emulates the massive B&O Warehouse that dominates the right field view behind Eutaw Street, whereas Progressive Field's glass and steel exterior "call[s] to mind the drawbridges and train trestles that crisscross the nearby Cuyahoga River." Starting with Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati in 2003, a number of Populous Sport's stadiums featured more contemporary and even futuristic designs. Subsequent stadium exteriors featuring this motif opened in Washington, D.C. and Minnesota.


title: Populous (company)

text: In addition to moving away from the concrete exteriors of the "cookie-cutter" multi-purpose stadiums that preceded the new parks, Populous incorporated other innovative touches: natural grass playing surfaces (instead of artificial turf), asymmetrical field dimensions, various park-specific idiosyncrasies (like Tal's Hill in Houston), and less foul territory that would keep fans farther from the diamond. And because the stadiums were designed for baseball instead of several sports, the sightlines were "uniformly excellent."


title: Populous (company)

text: Camden Yards was hugely popular with baseball fans, and its success convinced many cities to invest public funds in their own new ballparks to help revitalize struggling urban neighborhoods. From 1992 to 2012, HOK Sport/Populous were the lead architects on 14 Major League Baseball stadiums and helped renovate four existing stadiums.


title: Populous (company)

text: Populous's designs across Major League Baseball have become so prevalent that some critics have asserted that the distinctiveness that was originally found in early retro-classic ballparks is impossible to maintain. Some older ballparks like Fenway Park have strange dimensions because of the small parcels of land on which the parks were built. Most new stadiums are built on larger, dedicated land parcels. One sportswriter said the attempt to emulate the old parks' quirks is "contrived."


title: Populous (company)

text: Some commentators have criticized a tendency to cater new ballparks toward wealthier ticket buyers, such as with expanded numbers of luxury suites. Several writers have noted that upper deck seating at new ballparks may actually be farther away from the field than in the older parks, partly as a result of these new upper decks being pushed higher by rows of luxury suites. One writer in "The New Yorker" said it is "not quite right to credit or blame Populous" for trends in their new stadiums—as it is ultimately team owners that plan what they want in future stadiums—but that the firm "certainly enabled" such changes.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore of Seville (; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world".


title: Isidore of Seville

text: At a time of disintegration of classical culture, aristocratic violence and widespread illiteracy, Isidore was involved in the conversion of the Arian Visigothic kings to Catholicism, both assisting his brother Leander of Seville and continuing after his brother's death. He was influential in the inner circle of Sisebut, Visigothic king of Hispania. Like Leander, he played a prominent role in the Councils of Toledo and Seville.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: His fame after his death was based on his "Etymologiae", an etymological encyclopedia that assembled extracts of many books from classical antiquity that would have otherwise been lost. This work also helped standardize the use of the period (full stop), comma, and colon.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Since the early Middle Ages, Isidore has sometimes been called Isidore the Younger or Isidore Junior, () because of the earlier history purportedly written by Isidore of Córdoba.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore was born in Cartagena, Spain, a former Carthaginian colony, to Severianus and Theodora. Both Severian and Theodora belonged to notable Hispano-Roman families of high social rank. His parents were members of an influential family who were instrumental in the political-religious manoeuvring that converted the Visigothic kings from Arianism to Catholicism. The Catholic Church celebrates him and all his siblings as known saints:


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore received his elementary education in the Cathedral school of Seville. In this institution, the first of its kind in Spania, a body of learned men including Archbishop Leander of Seville taught the trivium and quadrivium, the classic liberal arts. Isidore applied himself to study diligently enough that he quickly mastered classical Latin, and acquired some Greek and Hebrew.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Two centuries of Gothic control of Iberia incrementally suppressed the ancient institutions, classical learning, and manners of the Roman Empire. The associated culture entered a period of long-term decline. The ruling Visigoths nevertheless showed some respect for the outward trappings of Roman culture. Arianism meanwhile took deep root among the Visigoths as the form of Christianity that they received.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Scholars may debate whether Isidore ever personally embraced monastic life or affiliated with any religious order, but he undoubtedly esteemed the monks highly.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: After the death of Leander of Seville on 13 March 600 or 601, Isidore succeeded to the See of Seville. On his elevation to the episcopate, he immediately constituted himself as the protector of monks.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Recognizing that the spiritual and material welfare of the people of his see depended on the assimilation of remnant Roman and ruling barbarian cultures, Isidore attempted to weld the peoples and subcultures of the Visigothic kingdom into a united nation. He used all available religious resources toward this end and succeeded. Isidore practically eradicated the heresy of Arianism and completely stifled the new heresy of Acephali at its outset. Archbishop Isidore strengthened religious discipline throughout his see.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Archbishop Isidore also used resources of education to counteract increasingly influential Gothic barbarism throughout his episcopal jurisdiction. His quickening spirit animated the educational movement centered on Seville. Isidore introduced his countrymen to Aristotle long before the Arabs studied Greek philosophy extensively.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: In 619, Isidore of Seville pronounced anathema against any ecclesiastic who in any way should molest the monasteries.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore presided over the Second Council of Seville, begun on 13 November 619 in the reign of King Sisebut, a provincial council attended by eight other bishops, all from the ecclesiastical province of Baetica in southern Spain. The Acts of the Council fully set forth the nature of Christ, countering the conceptions of Gregory, a Syrian representing the heretical Acephali.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Based on a few surviving canons found in the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, Isidore is known to have presided over an additional provincial council around 624.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: The council dealt with a conflict over the See of Écija and wrongfully stripped bishop Martianus of his see, a situation that was rectified by the Fourth Council of Toledo. It also addressed a concern over Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: The records of the council, unlike the First and Second Councils of Seville, were not preserved in the Hispana, a collection of canons and decretals likely edited by Isidore himself.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: All bishops of Hispania attended the Fourth National Council of Toledo, begun on 5 December 633. The aged Archbishop Isidore presided over its deliberations and originated most enactments of the council.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Through Isidore's influence, this Council of Toledo promulgated a decree commanding all bishops to establish seminaries in their cathedral cities along the lines of the cathedral school at Seville, which had educated Isidore decades earlier. The decree prescribed the study of Greek, Hebrew, and the liberal arts and encouraged interest in law and medicine. The authority of the council made this education policy obligatory upon all bishops of the Kingdom of the Visigoths. The council granted remarkable position and deference to the king of the Visigoths. The independent Church bound itself in allegiance to the acknowledged king; it said nothing of allegiance to the Bishop of Rome.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore's Latin style in the "Etymologiae" and elsewhere, though simple and lucid, reveals increasing local Visigothic traditions.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore was the first Christian writer to try to compile a "summa" of universal knowledge, in his most important work, the "Etymologiae" (taking its title from the method he uncritically used in the transcription of his era's knowledge). It is also known by classicists as the "Origines" (the standard abbreviation being "Orig".). This encyclopedia—the first such Christian epitome—formed a huge compilation of 448 chapters in 20 volumes.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: In it, Isidore entered his own terse digest of Roman handbooks, miscellanies and compendia, he continued the trend towards abridgements and summaries that had characterised Roman learning in Late Antiquity. In the process, many fragments of classical learning are preserved that otherwise would have been hopelessly lost; "in fact, in the majority of his works, including the "Origines", he contributes little more than the mortar which connects excerpts from other authors, as if he was aware of his deficiencies and had more confidence in the "stilus maiorum" than his own," his translator Katherine Nell MacFarlane remarks.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Some of these fragments were lost in the first place because Isidore's work was so highly regarded—Braulio called it "quaecunque fere sciri debentur", "practically everything that it is necessary to know"—that it superseded the use of many individual works of the classics themselves, which were not recopied and have therefore been lost: "all secular knowledge that was of use to the Christian scholar had been winnowed out and contained in one handy volume; the scholar need search no further".


title: Isidore of Seville

text: The fame of this work imparted a new impetus to encyclopedic writing, which bore abundant fruit in the subsequent centuries of the Middle Ages. It was the most popular compendium in medieval libraries. It was printed in at least ten editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore's continued popularity in the Renaissance. Until the 12th century brought translations from Arabic sources, Isidore transmitted what western Europeans remembered of the works of Aristotle and other Greeks, although he understood only a limited amount of Greek. The "Etymologiae" was much copied, particularly into medieval bestiaries.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore's "De fide catholica contra Iudaeos" furthers Augustine of Hippo's ideas on the Jewish presence in the Christian society of the ancient world. Like Augustine, Isidore held an acceptance of the Jewish presence as necessary to society because of their expected role in the anticipated Second Coming of Christ.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: But Isidore had access to Augustine's works, out of which one finds more than forced acceptance "of" but rather broader reasons than just an endtime role "for" Jews in society:


title: Isidore of Seville

text: According to Jeremy Cohen's account in a Berkeley, California publication, "De fide catholica contra Iudaeos", Isidore exceeds the anti-rabbinic polemics of earlier theologians by criticizing Jewish practice as deliberately disingenuous.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: But once again Isidore's same predecessor, Augustine, seems to have written of at least the possibility of Jewish rabbinical practice along that subject's content's purportedly deceptive lines in the same work cited above:


title: Isidore of Seville

text: He contributed two decisions to the Fourth Council of Toledo: Canon 60 calling for the forced removal of children from parents practising Crypto-Judaism and their education by Christians on the basis that while their parents were concealing themselves under the guise of Christians, they had presumably allowed their children to be baptised with intent to deceive. This removal was an exception to the general rule of the treatment of Jewish children according to the 13th century "Summa Theologica", "[I]t was never the custom of the Church to baptize the children of Jews against the will of their parents..."


title: Isidore of Seville

text: He also contributed Canon 65 thought to forbid Jews and Christians of Jewish origin from holding public office. Though why this severe restriction would refer to Christians and not foreign pagan slaves who eventually learn the native language is unclear, as "those who are "of" the Jews" are applied to the case as "do[ing] wrong to the Christians ["christianis iniurium faciunt"]."


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore's authored more than a dozen major works on various topics including mathematics, holy scripture, and monastic life, all in Latin:


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore was one of the last of the ancient Christian philosophers and was contemporary with Maximus the Confessor. He has been called the most learned man of his age by some scholars, and he exercised a far-reaching and immeasurable influence on the educational life of the Middle Ages. His contemporary and friend, Braulio of Zaragoza, regarded him as a man raised up by God to save the Spanish peoples from the tidal wave of barbarism that threatened to inundate the ancient civilization of Hispania.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: The Eighth Council of Toledo (653) recorded its admiration of his character in these glowing terms: "The extraordinary doctor, the latest ornament of the Catholic Church, the most learned man of the latter ages, always to be named with reverence, Isidore". This tribute was endorsed by the Fifteenth Council of Toledo, held in 688. Isidore was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1722 by Pope Innocent XIII.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Isidore was interred in Seville. His tomb represented an important place of veneration for the Mozarabs during the centuries after the Arab conquest of Visigothic Hispania. In the middle of the 11th century, with the division of Al Andalus into taifas and the strengthening of the Christian holdings in the Iberian peninsula, Ferdinand I of León and Castile found himself in a position to extract tribute from the fractured Arab states. In addition to money, Abbad II al-Mu'tadid, the Abbadid ruler of Seville (1042–1069), agreed to turn over St. Isidore's remains to Ferdinand I. A Catholic poet described al-Mutatid placing a brocaded cover over Isidore's sarcophagus, and remarked, "Now you are leaving here, revered Isidore. You know well how much your fame was mine!" Ferdinand had Isidore's remains reinterred in the then-recently constructed Basilica of San Isidoro in León. Today, many of his bones are buried in the cathedral of Murcia, Spain.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: In Dante's "Paradiso" (X.130), Isidore is mentioned among theologians and Doctors of the Church alongside the Scot Richard of St. Victor and the Englishman Bede the Venerable.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: The University of Dayton has named their implementation of the Sakai Project in honour of Saint Isidore.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: His likeness, along with that of Leander of Sevile and Ferdinand III of Castile, is depicted on the crest badge of Sevilla FC.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: The Order of St. Isidore of Seville is a chivalric order formed on 1 January 2000. An international organisation, the order aims to honour Saint Isidore as patron saint of the Internet, alongside promoting Christian chivalry online. (This honour is unofficial: the Holy See considered naming Isidore as patron saint of the Internet but has not done so.)


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Contemporary researchers have criticized Isidore. Specifically, the point of contention is his work in the "Etymologies." Historian Sandro D'Onofrio has argued that "job consisted here and there of restating, recapitulating, and sometimes simply transliterating both data and theories that lacked research and originality."


title: Isidore of Seville

text: In this view, Isidore—considering the large popularity his works enjoyed during the Middle Ages and the founding role he had in Scholasticism—would be less a brilliant thinker than a Christian gatekeeper making etymologies fit into the Christian worldview. "[H]e prescribed what they should mean," asserts D'Onofrio.


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Researcher Victor Bruno has countered this argument. According to him, it was not the meaning of the "Etymologies", or of Isidore's work as a whole, to give a scientific or philological account of the words, as a modern researcher would do. "It is obvious that, from a material point of view," argues Bruno, "Isidore’s practical knowledge on etymology, geography, and history are considered outdated; his methods, from the current academic and scientific standpoint, are questionable, and some of his conclusions are indeed incorrect. But Isidore is less concerned about being etymologically or philologically right than being "ontologically" right."


title: Isidore of Seville

text: Therefore Isidore, despite living in the early Middle Ages, is an archaic or "traditional" thinker. Being religiously inclined, Isidore would be concerned with the redeeming meaning of words and history, the ultimate quest of religions. The same researcher also found parallels between Isidore’s interpretation of the word "year" ("annus") and the meaning of the same words in the "Jāiminīya-Upaniṣad-Brāmaṇa".


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: Color Climax Corporation ApS (CCC) is a Danish pornography producer headquartered in Copenhagen founded by the Theander brothers. It had been one of the leading producers of European pornography up until the 1990s. Since then, CCC has recessed most of its assets, but because its earlier works attract admirers of classic pornography, CCC still functions today via the Internet. Color Climax Corporation (CCC) began in 1967 with the publication of the porn magazine "ColorClimax," despite pornography being illegal in Denmark until 1969.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: In 1969 Denmark legalized the production of all kinds of pornography. In the 1970s CCC began to produce 8 mm pornographic film loops. By the 1980s, video tape had replaced the film loops, sometimes as compilations of previously released material. CCC films usually had a wider range of contents including bestiality, some of which last starred Bodil Joensen, and other content not widely available at the time. Urolagnia was also displayed. By 2004, Color Climax had past film stars such as Rocco Siffredi and John Holmes in their archives on their website and Raymond Bacharach also known as John Thomson was part of the backstage crew.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: Color Climax was the first to produce commercial child pornography films. From 1969 to 1979, Color Climax was responsible for the relatively large-scale distribution of child pornography.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: Between 1971 and 1979 the company produced 10-minute films for its "Lolita" series. These films featured young girls, mainly with men, but sometimes with women or other children. The girls were mainly between the ages of 7 and 11 years; however, some were younger. Titles included "Incest Family," "Pre-Teen Sex," "Sucking Daddy," and "Child Love."


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: CCC was also known for its magazine series with titles such as "Color Climax" and "Rodox." In their day, these were regarded as some of the best quality pornographic magazines in Europe. This was the case particularly in the UK, where prior to the year 2000, the sale of hardcore porn was illegal. Before this date some British sex shops sold softcore British magazines in plastic packaging, with a "Rodox" or "Color Climax" front cover on the outside. The same shops sometimes sold watered-down reproductions of CCC titles, with any hardcore images removed. CCC magazines presented a wide variety of European and American stars. Photo-sets typically began with the models fully clothed, and ended with an image of male ejaculation, a storyline shared with other Danish magazines of the period such as "Fucking" and "Con Amore." Many of those photos remained available as of the middle of May 2014 via the Color Climax website, and they were also circulated widely—though they were so circulated in violation of copyright—around the Internet via file-sharing networks and other sources. Still photographs from the "Lolita" film series were also published in Color Climax magazines. By 2006, the company had published over 3,000 different books and magazines with a total of over 140 million editions; 8.5 million films, and almost a million video cassettes.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: Initially the company published various one-off magazines with titles such as "Carnaby Kinks," "Young Lesbians," and "Fuck Around the Clock" before settling on a series of numbered titles. These were produced in A5 format, consisted of full-color photographs, and typically featured five or six photo sets of around ten pages each; each set would be accompanied by a short descriptive text. While not all the titles ran concurrently, subject matter from magazine to magazine frequently overlapped. Many themes, such as big bust, interracial, uniform, or ethnically themed sets would appear in any title, dependent on the activity being performed rather than the participants.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: In the mid-1990s, the magazine titles were sold to the German studio Silwa, which continued them with their own in-house picture sets featuring similar scenes.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: The 1980s brought about more famous models and magazine regulars than the previous decade. Readers of the magazines saw likes of many American and European renowned figures of the adult industry. These include actors like Blondi Bee, Dolly Buster, Ebony Ayes, Roberto Malone, Lois Ayres, Jean-Pierre Armand, Ginger Lynn, Brigitte Lahaie, Joy Karins, Jeannie Pepper, and Bunny Bleu.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: Much like the 1980s, the 1990s ushered famous models and magazine regulars such as Anita Blond, Nick East, Angelica Bella, Angelique dos Santos (also known as Busty Angelique), Tom Byron, Heather Lee, Sarah Young, Minka, Laura Angel, Lisa Marie Abato, Domonique Simone, and Sean Michaels.


title: Color Climax Corporation

text: By the 21st century, the company's performers were mostly European models, including Julia Taylor, Laura Lion, Sandra Russo, Danielle Rush, Daria Glower, and Sandy Style.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Oluwatosin Ayoyinka Olumide Abasi (born January 7, 1983), is an American musician, best known as the founder and lead guitarist of the instrumental progressive metal band Animals as Leaders. He has recorded and released five albums with Animals as Leaders: a self-titled debut, "Weightless", "The Joy of Motion", "The Madness of Many", and their most recent album, "Parrhesia". Abasi was ranked #97 on the "Guitar World" list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of all time.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Tosin Abasi was born in Washington D.C. to Nigerian immigrants to the United States. His brother, Abdul Abasi, is a former drill sergeant in the United States military and is currently a fashion designer.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Abasi is a mainly self-taught guitarist. He first picked up a guitar at his friend's house, simply strumming it and making up basic licks on the spot. At this time, he was being exposed to some music through learning the clarinet in elementary school. He later began to rent hair metal guitarists' instructional video tapes from his local music store, saying that some "were videos you did not want to be caught watching" due to racy material in certain tapes (e.g. women in bikinis).


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Abasi said that when he decided to learn the guitar, his father was "totally liberal about the whole thing and encouraging and proud" and in fact, bought him his first guitar. However his mother initially held a more conservative outlook. Tosin said in an interview, "My mom definitely represents more of the traditional immigrant mentality of education and conventional channels being way more important than a creative endeavor".


title: Tosin Abasi

text: He was the guitarist for the Silver Spring, Maryland-based metal band PSI before moving on to join the technical metalcore band Reflux in the early to mid-2000s. During a Reflux show, Prosthetic Records noticed his skill and offered him a record deal as a solo artist. At first, he refused, saying he didn't feel comfortable with his skill level to write his own record. Afterwards, Abasi enrolled at the Atlanta Institute of Music and Media, a for-profit college. After graduating, he contacted Prosthetic Records asking if the offer still held. He then formed his "solo" project, Animals as Leaders, the name loosely being derived from the book "Ishmael".


title: Tosin Abasi

text: In 2009, he recorded the first Animals as Leaders release with Misha Mansoor (of Periphery), who produced and recorded the album with Tosin, as well as programming the drums. Javier Reyes and Navene Koperweis were enlisted on rhythm guitar and drums, respectively, after the completion of the album, turning the project into a full touring band. He also toured with the band Born of Osiris as a stand-in guitarist for former member Matt Pantelis whilst they were auditioning for a permanent replacement.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: In 2011, Tosin started putting together material for a new band, T.R.A.M., consisting of his Animals As Leaders bandmate Javier Reyes, Suicidal Tendencies drummer Eric Moore, and former The Mars Volta wind instrumentalist Adrián Terrazas-González. "T.R.A.M." stands for Terrazas, Reyes, Abasi, Moore. In mid-March 2011, T.R.A.M. played their first show at South by Southwest, a multi-day music festival in Austin, Texas. Tosin explained that he formed T.R.A.M. as a trio consisting of himself, Javier and Adrian as an outlet for some ideas he had written which he felt did not fit with Animals as Leaders. Eric Moore was not added into the lineup until the recording phase of the album, and wrote and performed all the drums on the album within a few weeks.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Animals as Leaders released their second album, "Weightless", on November 8, 2011. Abasi was reportedly meeting with Misha Mansoor again in late 2012, and it was reported that a new Animals as Leaders album was in the works, due to be released in 2013.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: At NAMM 2013, Tosin Abasi's signature guitar, the Ibanez TAM 100, was revealed. This guitar is based upon the Ibanez RG2228 model, which he had been using for some years, and contains his signature DiMarzio Ionizer pickups.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: On March 19, 2014, the Animals As Leaders album "The Joy of Motion" was made available for streaming, via YouTube. On March 24, 2014, the album was released in Europe, March 25 in North America and on March 28 in Australia and New Zealand by Sumerian Records. The album was met with widely positive reviews. In July 2014, Tosin appeared in the first episode of Guitar Power, a web-series sponsored by D'Addario String and Rolling Stone Magazine.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: As of March 2014, he was on tour with Animals As Leaders. In October 2014, it was revealed that Abasi would join Joe Satriani, Guthrie Govan, and Mike Keneally on the G4 tour in 2015.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: In April and May 2016, Abasi joined Nuno Bettencourt, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and Zakk Wylde, as part of the Generation Axe tour. The supergroup later reprised their tour in 2017 in Asia, and North America once more in 2018.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: In August 2020, it was revealed that Abasi was the musician behind the "air guitar" shredding in Bill & Ted Face the Music.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: In late March 2022, Animals as Leaders's "Parrhesia (album)" was released; though generally positive, critics mostly hold consensus that the album is not the band's strongest work: "Metal Sucks" gave the album a 3/5, citing shifts towards minimalism Abasi's style as an artist overall leading to more ambient work but fewer ""wow"" moments; "Pitchfork" gave the album a 7.3/10, noting the album as making strides towards a refinement of the group's style; "Guitar.com" rated the work 4 out of 5 stars.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: In 2017, after leaving Ibanez Guitars, Abasi wanted to expand on his design and include features such as locking tuners and 6 string options. As a result, Abasi founded Abasi Concepts, originally "Abasi Guitars", offering a range of 6, 7 and 8 string instruments that feature his unique ergonomic design, locking tuners, signature Fishman pickups and unique wood combinations. Abasi started with Frank Falbo but had a public fallout with the builder over business issues. This led to Abasi Concepts switching to World Musical Instrument Co. Ltd as the manufacturer for their Legion Series, Dyna Gakki as the manufacturer for their JLarada Series and Grover Jackson Engineering as the manufacturer for their Master, Spartan and Space Telecaster (shortened to Space T) series. In 2022, Abasi Concepts expanded their offering by introducing the double-cut Emi.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Abasi has played a wide variety of guitars over his career, though many of them have been custom luthier'ed, having been made by one of Strandberg (styled ".strandberg*") guitars through their since discontinued Made to Measure Swedish custom shop, Ibanez guitars through their prototyping and custom shops, Kiesel guitars, or Rick Toone, a smaller luthier who seems to hold similar creative/ general philosophies. Toone has produced several instruments with Abasi in mind. Notably, Abasi's collection reached into the hundreds, though many were sold off in 2020; as such, this list focuses primarily on the entries of particular, which have either been seen at workshops, on tour, social media videos, or were used in recording.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Abasi Guitars's "Larada" design was done uniquely by Abasi, despite having drawn lucid inspirations from instruments Tosin has played in the past. While the body shape is atypical, the rest of the design placed ergonomics above all. At least, the original Ibanez prototypes boasted a "teardrop" neck profile, in contrast to the more common C- and D- shaped profiles (and Ibanez's "Wizard" necks, which near a D-shape, though are much flatter and complement the difficulties that come with common hand motions on extended range guitars), fanned frets/ multi-scale neck, which are designed to complement the hand contortions required for fingering chords and larger stretches in addition to improving tonality, feel, and timbre for each string individually, and tighter string placement (id est, the gaps between the strings are smaller).


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Nylon acoustic-electric guitars use a mix of technologies to modernize classical guitar construction with ergonomic and body design influences from the electric guitar. Roughly, they well mimic the tones and timbres of a traditional acoustic classical guitar though often feature a MIDI output and/ or a traditional audio jack to be plugged into some amplifying system, though mostly intended for "acoustic amplifiers," which find greater use for steel-string acoustic-electric guitars, popular in many genres.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: The first two entries to this list are particularly interesting: used in at least "Physical Education" from "The Joy of Motion" and some of "Weightless", while these are both 8-string'ed guitars, they feature a modified neck and fretboard that allows for two "negative frets" for the lowest strings. That is, while the top 6-strings boast 24 frets each, the lowest strings boast 26. These are left tuned to C#0; the "Blur" is equipped with a capo specifically for those strings, which returns it to normal. A second, similar Made to Measure Strandberg was produced for Javier Reyes, which he still uses on tour for "Physical Education."


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Tosin Abasi has released two sets of signature pickups with DiMarzio and, later, Fishman, respectively. A set with Seymour Duncan was in the works before he switched to Fishman for their Fluence design. The DiMarzio were used in the TAM10 and TAM100; several sets of pickups went through the Prototype before Abasi's deal with Fishman. Now, all Abasi Guitars use the Tosin Abasi Fishman Fluence model, with the exception of the "Space T Larada", meant to mimic the Fender Telecaster and so accordingly use Fishman's Greg Koch model pickups.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: Overall, Abasi has ebbed and flowed between digital and analog effects and amplifiers, often taking advantage of both. For most of the 2010's, Fractal Audio's AXE-FX II was central to his signal chain, though the final third of the decade saw him swap to leaning primarily on analog effects and amplifiers.


title: Tosin Abasi

text: His favored guitarists, musicians and bands include Steve Vai, Allan Holdsworth, Fredrik Thordendal of Meshuggah, Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Mike Einziger of Incubus, and Dream Theater.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is any of a class of polyurethane plastics with many properties, including elasticity, transparency, and resistance to oil, grease, and abrasion. Technically, they are thermoplastic elastomers consisting of linear segmented block copolymers composed of hard and soft segments.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: TPU is a block copolymer consisting of alternating sequences of hard and soft segments or domains formed by the reaction of (1) diisocyanates with short-chain diols (so-called chain extenders) and (2) diisocyanates with long-chain diols. By varying the ratio, structure and/or molecular weight of the reaction compounds, an enormous variety of different TPU can be produced. This allows urethane chemists to fine-tune the polymer's structure to the desired final properties of the material.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: A TPU resin consists of linear polymeric chains in block-structures. Such chains contain low polarity segments which are rather long (called soft segments), alternating with shorter, high polarity segments (called hard segments). Both types of segments are linked together by covalent links so that they actually form block-copolymers. The miscibility of the hard and soft segments in TPU depends on the differences in their glass transition temperature (Tg) which occurs at the onset of micro-Brownian segmental motion, identifiable by dynamic mechanical spectra. For an immiscible TPU, the loss modulus spectrum typically shows double peaks, each of which is assigned to the Tg of one component. If the two components are miscible, the TPU will be characterized by a single broad peak whose position lie between that of the two original Tg peaks of the pure components.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: The polarity of the hard pieces creates a strong attraction between them, which causes a high degree of aggregation and order in this phase, forming crystalline or pseudo crystalline areas located in a soft and flexible matrix. This so-called phase separation between both blocks can be more or less important, depending on the polarity and the molecular weight of the flexible chain, the production conditions, etc. The crystalline or pseudo crystalline areas act as physical cross-links, which account for the high elasticity level of TPU, whereas the flexible chains will impart the elongation characteristics to the polymer.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: These "pseudo crosslinks", however, disappear under the effect of heat, and thus the classical extrusion, injection molding, and calendering processing methods are applicable to these materials. Consequently, TPU scrap can be reprocessed.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: TPU has many applications, including automotive instrument panels, caster wheels, power tools, sporting goods, medical devices, drive belts, footwear, inflatable rafts, and a variety of extruded film, sheet and profile uses. TPU is also a popular material found in flexible outer cases of devices like mobile phones and keyboard protectors.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: TPU is well known for its applications in wire and cable jacketing, hose and tube, in adhesive and textile coating applications, and as an impact modifier of other polymers. It is also used in high-performance films, such as high impact resistant glass structures.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: TPU is the thermoplastic elastomer used in fused filament deposition (FFD) 3D printing. The absence of warping and lack of need for primer makes it an ideal filament for 3D printers when objects need to be flexible and elastic. Since TPU is a thermoplastic, it can be melted by the 3D printer's extruder, printed, then cooled back into an elastic solid. TPU powders are also used for other 3D printing processes, like selective laser sintering (SLS) and 3D inkjet printing. It's also used in large vertical injection or extrusion moulding machines to print directly without the intermediate step of filament extrusion or powder preparation.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: TPU is the right choice when a flexible at low temperatures and/or abrasion resistance TPE is requested. Polyether-based TPU in cases where additional excellent hydrolysis and microbial resistance is required, as well as in cases where extreme low-temperature flexibility is important. Ester-based TPU in cases the oil and greases resistance is more relevant.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: When stable light colour and non-yellowing performance are required, aliphatic TPU based on aliphatic isocyanates is used.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: BASF has pioneered crosslinking during TPU transformation, made possible by adding liquid crosslinkers or using a solid granulated additive masterbatch. Plant-based bio TPU has been developed for green thermoplastic elastomer applications by BASF, Merquinsa-Lubrizol and GRECO, marketed as Elastollan N, Pearlthane ECO and Isothane respectively.


title: Thermoplastic polyurethane

text: TPU may contain siloxanes, some of which are considered substances of very high concern by the European Union.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Terciopelo (Bothrops asper) is a species of pit vipers occurring at low to moderate elevations in northeast Mexico and Central America, and into South America where it is known from elevations up to 2600 meters in the Colombian and Ecuadorian Andes, as well as Venezuela and Trinidad on the Caribbean coast. With a mass of up to and a maximal length of , the terciopelo is among the largest pit vipers. It is light to dark brown in color, often with yellow zig-zag-shaped lines on each side of the body. Dubbed "the ultimate pit-viper" for its large size, fangs and venom yield, it has a fearsome reputation, responsible for the most snakebites within its range because of its defensive temperament and proximity to human residence. However, like other venomous snakes, it avoids confrontation with humans whenever possible. No subspecies are currently recognized.


title: Bothrops asper

text: The generic name, "Bothrops", comes from the Greek words and , which mean 'pit' and 'face' (or 'eye'), respectively. This is a reference to these snakes' highly sensitive heat-detecting pit organs. The specific epithet, , which is a Latin word meaning 'rough' or 'harsh', may allude to the species' keeled dorsal scales.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Some of the common names applied to this snake are "terciopelo" ("velvet" in Spanish), "fer-de-lance", "mapepire balsain" (Trinidad), "carpet labaria" (Guyana), "barba amarilla" (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua; "yellow beard"), "equis" (Ecuador and Panama; "x"), "talla equis" , "mapaná" (Colombia), "cuaima" (Venezuela), "nauyaca" (México; from Nahuatl "nahui", four, and "yacatl", nose; "four noses"), and "yellow-jaw tommygoff" (Belize)."


title: Bothrops asper

text: The name fer-de-lance is French (or possibly Créole), translating to "iron of the lance", "iron spear point" or simply "spearhead" or "lancehead". In English the name lancehead is applied to the genus "Bothrops" as a whole, and in combination with the majority of the species within the genus (e.g.: Alcatrazes lancehead ("Bothrops alcatraz"), Patagonian lancehead, ("Bothrops ammodytoides"), Andean lancehead ("Bothrops andianus") etc.). The name fer-de-lance has been used inconsistently and very informally with several species in the genus "Bothrops" having been called fer-de-lance at one time or another, most commonly "Bothrops asper", "Bothrops atrox", "Bothrops caribbaeus", and "Bothrops lanceolatus". Several herpetologists have preferred and argued to restrict the name fer-de-lance to the Martinique lancehead ("Bothrops lanceolatus") from the Caribbean Island of Martinique, but popular usage has rarely recognized any distinction. In their seminal opus on the venomous reptiles of the Western hemisphere, Campbell & Lamar stated: "The name fer-de lance, widely used in North America with reference to "B. asper" and "B. atrox", has no legitimate origin of use in regions inhabited by this snake." In an effort to establish standardized names for the amphibians and reptiles of North America, the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR), a not-for-profit organization and one of the largest international herpetological societies, applied the following nomenclature:


title: Bothrops asper

text: In recent decades, herpetologists have preferred the name 'terciopelo' for "Bothrops asper", although the term fer-de-lance is still common in popular usage.


title: Bothrops asper

text: "Bothrops" species can be distinguished by their broad, flattened heads which are set apart from the rest of their bodies. The head of this snake is light to dark brown or even black. Although usually absent, it may have occipital blotches or streaks that range from indistinct to distinct. The underside is most often pale yellow. This species has different patterns and colors on its dorsal and ventral sides and it exhibits a postorbital stripe. The ventral side is yellow, cream, or a whitish gray, with dark blotches that are more frequent closer to the posterior end. Ventrolaterally, "B. asper" has interchanging gray scales which are more pale towards the medial line. Dark triangles with pale edges can be seen laterally, which range in number from 18 to 25. Apices either alternate or are reflective of each other over the middorsal line. In the interspaces, there are dark, paravertebral blotches. Specimens may have a yellow zig-zag-shaped line on each side of the body. There is a great variety of colours on its dorsal side: olive, gray, light brown to dark brown, tan or sometimes nearly black. To prevent water loss where they occur in drier regions, this species has more scales.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Specimens of this species may weigh up to and are often in length. Very big females can reach lengths up to , although this is uncommon. These are among the most sexually dimorphic of all snakes. The two sexes are born the same size, but by age 7 to 12 months, females begin to grow at a much faster rate than males. Females have thick, heavy bodies and grow significantly larger than males. They also have heads two or three times the size of males relative to their size and proportionally bigger fangs (typically 2.5 cm), as well.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Across its geographic range, this species varies greatly phenotypically. As a result, great confusion between it and other related species, most notably "Bothrops atrox", which is similar in color but usually has yellow or rust-like tones and rectangular or trapezoidal blotches.


title: Bothrops asper

text: It is found on the Gulf - Atlantic versant of eastern Mexico as far north as the state of Tamaulipas, southward through the entire Yucatan Peninsula extending into Central America, including Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. An isolated population occurs in southeastern Chiapas (Mexico) and southwestern Guatemala. In northern South America, it is found in Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Venezuela. The type locality given is "Obispo, on the Isthmus of Darien" (Panama).


title: Bothrops asper

text: This is mostly a lowland species that, in Mexico and Central America, occurs from about sea level to altitude. In South America, it apparently ranges to considerably higher elevations: up to in Venezuela and at least in Colombia according to herpetologist Lancini.


title: Bothrops asper

text: According to Campbell and Lamar (2004), its range in Ecuador extends as far south along the Pacific coast as El Oro Province and the Vilcabamba area of the Río Catamayo Valley. This species is reported to occur from seven (Bolívar, Carchi, Chimborazo, Esmeraldas, Guayas, Los Ríos and Pichincha) of the fourteen provinces along the Pacific slope of Ecuador. There are even a few records from northern coastal Peru, with these snakes being reported in the Tumbes Region. It is also known from the island of Gorgona off the Pacific coast of Colombia.


title: Bothrops asper

text: "B. asper" occurs throughout the inter-Andes valleys of Colombia across the Caribbean coastal plain through central Venezuela north of the Orinoco as far east as the Delta Amacuro region. This is the only "Bothrops" species that occurs on the island of Trinidad, although the situation there is complicated due to proximity of Trinidad to the Orinoco Delta where it may be sympatric with "B. atrox".


title: Bothrops asper

text: Due to the casual and informal application of the name "Fer-de-lance" being applied to any number of species of Latin America pit vipers in the genus "Bothrops", there is much confusion and misunderstanding, particularly in popular literature, as to proper nomenclature. Populations of "Bothrops" often referred to as Fer-de-lance on the island of Saint Lucia are "Bothrops caribbaeus". Populations of "Bothrops" referred to as Fer-de-lance on the island of Martinique are regard as "Bothrops lanceolatus".


title: Bothrops asper

text: This species likes moist environments, and occurs in most life zones located at low or middle elevations (up to ), excluding those with strong seasonal dry periods. They are, however, sometimes found at much higher elevations. This is true in the premontane forest in Costa Rica, the cloud forest of Guatemala and Mexico, or the lower montane wet forest in the Caribbean Region of Colombia and Ecuador. It chiefly inhabits tropical rainforest and evergreen forest, but it also occurs in drier areas of tropical deciduous forest, thorn forest and pine savannah near lakes, rivers and streams. The home range of "B. asper" averages between 3.71 ha and 5.95 ha, which is comparatively small in relation to other pitvipers.


title: Bothrops asper

text: "B. asper" is nocturnal and solitary. It is less active in colder and drier periods. This species is often found near rivers and streams, basking in the sun during the day and lying still while well camouflaged in leaf litter or under forest cover waiting to ambush prey such as rats and mice that come within range during the night. When cornered or threatened, this species can be very defensive and may exhibit an S-coiled defense display. Juveniles are often semiarboreal, and even adults are sometimes encountered in bushes and low trees. Juveniles are also known to exhibit caudal luring, a use of their differently colored tail tips to lure prey. Although both males and females display this behavior, only males have bright coloured tail tips.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Compared to the common lancehead, "B. atrox", these snakes have been described as excitable and unpredictable when disturbed. They can, and often will, move very quickly, usually opting to flee from danger, but are capable of suddenly reversing direction to vigorously defend themselves. Adult specimens, when cornered and fully alert, are dangerous. In a review of bites from this species suffered by field biologists, Hardy (1994) referred to it as the "ultimate pit viper".


title: Bothrops asper

text: "Bothrops asper" is a diet generalist and is known to prey on a remarkably wide range of animals. A generalized ontogenetic diet shift occurs, with a higher percentage of ectothermic prey in juveniles, changing to a greater percentage of endothermic prey in adults, particularly small mammals. However both juveniles and adults, regardless of size or age, are known to opportunistically prey on ectothermic and endothermic species. Reports of invertebrate and insect remains in the digestive tracts along with frog and lizard remains are believed to represent secondary ingestion, however the dissection of several specimens containing only insect remains such as beetles (Coleoptera), and bugs (Hemiptera) are believed to reflect insects as primary prey too. Cannibalism has been reported in both captive and wild juveniles and the species is known to scavenge on dead frogs and rodents.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Just a few of the documented ectothermic prey items include: centipedes ("Scolopendra"), beetles ("Coleoptera"), grasshoppers ("Orthoptera"), crayfish, eels ("Synbranchus"); caecilians ("Dermophis"), frogs ("Eleutherodactylus", "Leptodactylus", "Lithobates", "Smilisca"), toads ("Rhinella"), amphisbaenians ("Amphisbaena"), lizards ("Ameiva", "Anolis", "Ctenosaura", "Gonatodes"), and snakes ("Bothrops", "Erythrolamprus", "Ninia"). Endothermic prey species include: bay wren ("Cantorchilus nigricapillus"), grey-headed tanager ("Eucometis penicillata"), wren ("Troglodytes"), blue-black grassquit ("Volatinia jacarina"), Central American woolly opossum ("Caluromys derbianus"), common opossum ("Didelphis marsupialis"), Desmarest's spiny pocket mouse ("Heteromys desmarestianus"), dusky rice rat ("Melanomys caliginosus"), black rat ("Rattus rattus"), Rothschild's porcupine ("Coendou rothschildi"), Brazilian cottontail ("Sylvilagus brasiliensis"), and least shrew ("Cryptotis parva").


title: Bothrops asper

text: The timing of the reproductive cycle and the litter size of this species vary according to location: in some parts of Costa Rica, for example, it is more prolific than in others. Reproduction is highly seasonal and in Costa Rica, reproductive cycles are tightly related to rainfall patterns. The timing of breeding differs between populations in the Caribbean and Pacific lowlands. On the Pacific side, mating took place between September and November, with females giving birth between April and June. The average number of offspring was 18.6 (five to 40) in this population. Neonates ranged in total length from and in weight from . On the Atlantic side, mating was observed in March, and births occurred between September and November. The average number of offspring was 41.1 (14–86), whereas the total length of neonates ranged from , and weighed from . In both populations, gestation time ranged from six to eight months, and the size of a litter correlated significantly with the size of the female. This species is considered to be the most prolific of all snakes in the Americas.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Male-male combat in this species has not been observed. Females will mate with more than one male during mating season. Mating includes a series of movements of the male, which then slowly chases an accepting female. The female then stops movement and extends her posture to mate. It is not known whether this species exhibits annual or biannual reproduction.


title: Bothrops asper

text: It is considered the most dangerous snake in Costa Rica, responsible for 46% of all bites and 30% of all hospitalized cases; before 1947, the fatality rate was 9%, but this has since declined to almost 0% (Bolaños, 1984), mostly due to the Clodomiro Picado Research Institute, responsible for the production of snake antiophidic sera (which are also exported to other countries in Latin America and Africa) and scientific research on serpents and their venoms, as well as educational and extension programs in rural areas and hospitals.


title: Bothrops asper

text: In the Colombian states of Antioquia and Chocó, it causes 50–70% of all snakebites, with a sequelae rate of 9% and a fatality rate of 6% (Otero et al., 1992).


title: Bothrops asper

text: In the state of Lara, Venezuela, it is responsible for 78% of all envenomations and all snakebite fatalities (Dao-L., 1971). One of the reasons so many people are bitten is because of its association with human habitation; many bites occur indoors (Sasa & Vázquez, 2003).


title: Bothrops asper

text: This species is irritable and fast-moving. It is also regarded as being more excitable and unpredictable than "B. atrox". Its large size and habit of raising its head high off the ground can result in bites above the knee. It has also been observed to eject venom over a distance of at least 6 ft (1.8 m) in fine jets from the tips of its fangs (Mole, 1924).


title: Bothrops asper

text: Bite symptoms include pain, oozing from the puncture wounds, local swelling that may increase for up to 36 hours, bruising that spreads from the bite site, blisters, numbness, mild fever, headache, bleeding from the nose and gums, hemoptysis, gastrointestinal bleeding, hematuria, hypotension, nausea, vomiting, impaired consciousness and tenderness of the spleen. In untreated cases, local necrosis frequently occurs and may cause gangrene which often requires amputation. In 12 fatal cases, the cause of death was sepsis (5), intracranial hemorrhage (3), acute kidney injury with hyperkalemia and metabolic acidosis (2) and hemorrhagic shock (1).


title: Bothrops asper

text: Venom yield (dry weight) averages 458 mg, with a maximum of 1530 mg (Bolaños, 1984) and an in mice of 2.844 mg/kg IP.


title: Bothrops asper

text: The venomous bite of "B. asper" has been suggested to have been a factor in the choice of certain Mayan settlements, such as Nim Li Punit, Belize Central America, where the thick jungle inhabited by these snakes was used as a defensive boundary.


title: Bothrops asper

text: The venom of the fer-de-lance is so potent that didelphine opossums (i.e., opossums like the Virginia opossum), which are normally immune to the venom of pit vipers and rattlesnakes, are still capable of succumbing to the venom of this snake. This is especially the case if the opossum is not fully grown (and thus the venom is more concentrated per gram). Indeed, the extremely potent venom of "B. asper" has been suggested to have evolved as part of an evolutionary arms race between these snakes and didelphine opossums, as a defensive adaptation to prevent predation by opossums, an adaptation that allowed fer-de-lances to prey on large opossums, or both.


title: Bothrops asper

text: This species was once regarded as a subspecies of "B. atrox" and can still often be confused with it.


title: Bothrops asper

text: Goliath birdeater spiders sometimes prey on the snake, despite it being one of the most venomous snakes in Central and South America.


title: Banat

text: Banat (, ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region that straddles Central and Eastern Europe and which is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania (the counties of Timiș, Caraș-Severin, Arad south of the Mureș river, and the western part of Mehedinți); the western part of Banat is in northeastern Serbia (mostly included in Vojvodina, except for a small part included in the Belgrade Region); and a small northern part lies within southeastern Hungary (Csongrád-Csanád County).


title: Banat

text: The region's historical ethnic diversity was severely affected by the events of World War II. Today, Banat is mostly populated by ethnic Romanians, Serbs and Hungarians, but small populations of other ethnic groups also live in the region. Nearly all are citizens of either Serbia, Romania or Hungary.


title: Banat

text: During the Middle Ages, the term "banate" designated a frontier province led by a military governor who was called a "ban". Such provinces existed mainly in South Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian lands. In South Slavic and other regional languages, terms for "banate" were: Serbian – , Hungarian – , Romanian – and Latin – .


title: Banat

text: At the time of the medieval Hungarian kingdom, the territory of modern Banat appeared in written sources as ""Temesköz"" (first mentioned in 1374). The Hungarian name mainly referred to the lowland areas between the Mureş, Tisza and Danube Rivers. Its Ottoman name was ""Eyalet of Temeşvar"" (later ""Eyalet of Yanova""). During the Turkish occupation, the territory of Temesköz (Banat) was also called ""Rascia"" ("the country of the Serbs", 1577).


title: Banat

text: In the early modern period, there were two banates that partially or entirely included the territory of what is referred to in the current era as Banat: the Banate of Lugoj and Caransebeș in 16th and 17th century and the Banat of Temeswar or "Banat of Temes" in 18th and 19th centuries. The word "Banat" without any other qualification, typically refers to the historical Banat of Temeswar, which acquired this title after the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz. The name was also used from 1941 to 1944, during Axis occupation, for the short-lived political entity (see: Banat (1941–44)), which covered only today's Serbian part of the historical Banat.


title: Banat

text: The name "Banat" is similar in different languages of the region; , (), or "", , , , , , , , "Vànaton". Some of these languages would also have other terms, from their own frame of reference, to describe this historical and geographic region.


title: Banat

text: Banat is defined as the part of the Pannonian Basin bordered by the River Danube to the south, the River Tisa to the west, the River Mureș to the north, and the Southern Carpathian Mountains to the east. The total area of the region is . Its historical capital was Timișoara, now in Timiș County in Romania.


title: Banat

text: The territory of Banat is presently part of the Romanian counties Timiș, Caraș-Severin, Arad and Mehedinți; the Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina and Belgrade City District; and the Hungarian Csongrád-Csanád County.


title: Banat

text: The Romanian Banat, with an area of , is mountainous in the south and southeast, while in the north, west and south-west it is flat and in some places marshy. The climate, except in the marshy parts, is generally healthy. Wheat, barley, oats, rye, maize, flax, hemp and tobacco are grown in large quantities, and the products of the vineyards are of a good quality. Game is plentiful and the rivers swarm with fish. The mineral wealth is great, including copper, tin, lead, zinc, iron and especially coal. Amongst its numerous mineral springs, the most important are those of Mehadia, with sulphurous waters, which were already known in the Roman period as the Termae Herculis ("Băile Herculane"). The present "Banat Region" of Romania includes some areas that are mountainous and were not part of the historical Banat or of the Pannonian plain.


title: Banat

text: In Serbia, Banat is mostly plains. Wheat, barley, oats, rye, maize, hemp and sunflower are grown, and mineral wealth consists of oil and natural gas. A popular tourist destination in Banat is Deliblatska Peščara. There are also several ethnic minorities in the region, including Hungarians (10.21% of the population), Romanians, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Roma people, and others.


title: Banat

text: The first known inhabitants of present-day Banat were the Neolithic populations. In the 4th century BC, Celtic tribes settled in this area. Various Hallstatt and La Tène objects were found in this area. The most important tribes were the Scordisci and the Taurisci. The Scordisci, who formed a powerful state even minted their own coins, imitating the Macedonian tetradrachm. The Scordisci subdued as all the other tribes in the region to the getic ruler Burebista, therefore their region was part of the Dacian kingdom under Burebista in the first century BC, but the balance of power in the area partially changed during the campaigns of Augustus. At the beginning of the 2nd century A.D., Trajan led two wars against the Dacians: the campaigns of 101–102, and 105–106. Eventually, the territory of Banat fell under Roman rule. It became an important link between Dacia province and the other parts of the Empire. Roman rule had a significant impact: castra and guard stations were established and roads and public buildings built. The public bath establishments of Ad Aquas Herculis, modern-day Băile Herculane were also established. Some of the important Roman settlements in Banat were: Arcidava (today Vărădia), Centum Putea (today Surducu Mare), Berzobis (today Berzovia), Tibiscum (today Jupa), Agnaviae (today Zăvoi), Ad Pannonios (today Teregova), Praetorium (today Mehadia), and Dierna (today Orșova).


title: Banat

text: In 273 A.D. Emperor Aurelian withdrew the Roman Army from Dacia. The area fell into the hands of foederati such as the Sarmatians (Iazyges, Roxolani, Limigantes) and later the Goths, who also took control of other parts of Dacia.


title: Banat

text: The Goths were forced out by the Huns, who organized their ruling center in the Pannonian Basin (the Pannonian Plain), an area that included the northwestern part of today's Banat. After the death of Attila, the Hunnic empire disintegrated in days. The previously subjected Gepids formed a new kingdom in the area, only to be defeated 100 years later by the Avars.


title: Banat

text: One governing center of the Avars was formed in the region, which played an important role in the Avar–Byzantine wars. An inscription on one of the vessels from the Treasure of Sânnicolau Mare (which origin is disputed) recorded names of two local rulers, Butaul and Buyla, who bore Slavic ruling titles of župan. The Avar rule over the area lasted until the 9th century, until Charlemagne's campaigns. Banat region became part of the First Bulgarian Empire a few decades later. Archaeological evidence shows the Avars and Gepids lived here until the middle of the 10th century. The Avar rule had triggered considerable Slavic migration to the southern Pannonian plain and to the Balkans.


title: Banat

text: In 895, the Hungarians living in Etelköz entered the Byzantine-Bulgarian war as allies of Byzantium, and defeated the Bulgars. Because of this, the Bulgarians allied with the Pechenegs, who attacked the Hungarian settlements. This led to the process of what is known as the Hungarian conquest of the Pannonian basin, referred to by them as "hometaking" ("") in Hungarian. This also resulted in the loss of part of the territories north of the Danube for the Bulgarian Empire.