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Just 60 years ago, Australia had only one big art festival. Now Australia has hundreds of smaller community-based festivals, and national and regional festivals that focus on specific art forms. |
Australia is home to many animals that can be found nowhere else on Earth, which include: the koalas, the kangaroos, the wombat, the numbat, the emu, among many others. Most of the marsupials in the world are found only on the continent or on the neighbouring island of New Guinea. Wildfires from global warming in 2020 have decreased their population. |
American English |
American English or United States English is the dialect of the English language spoken in the United States of America. It is different in some ways from other types of English, such as British English. Many types of American English came from local dialects in England. |
Many people today know about American English even if they live in a country where another sort of English is spoken. This may be because people hear and read American English through the media, for example movies, television, and the Internet, where the most common form of English is American English. |
Because people all over the world use the English language, it gets many new words. English has been changing in this way for hundreds of years. For example, the many millions who speak Indian English frequently add American English words to go along with its British English base and many other words from the various Indian languages. |
Sometimes people learn American English as it is spoken in America. For example, in telephone call centers in India and other places, people often learn American English to sound more like their customers who call from America. These people often keep using American English in everyday life. |
The meaning of many words are different in American English. Most changes in a language start with small things. For example, Italian, Spanish, and French all came from Latin. |
There are many words that sound the same in both American English and British English, but are spelled differently. For example: |
Books show that many of these differences come from the writings of English-lover Noah Webster, who made the American dictionary following the American War of Independence. |
Some more differences in American English: |
There are also some words in American English that are a bit different from British English, e.g.: |
General American English is the kind most spoken in mass media. It more vigorously pronounces the letter "R" than some other kinds do. "R-dropping" is frequent in certain places where "r" sound is not pronounced after a vowel. For example as in the words "car" and "card" sounding like "cah" and "cahd". This occurs in the Boston area. |
Aquaculture |
Aquaculture is the farming of fish, shrimp, abalones, algae, and other seafood. Aquaculture supplies fish, such as catfish, salmon, and trout. It was developed a few thousand years ago in China. Aquaculture supplies over 20% of all the seafood harvested. |
Fish farming has been practiced, in some parts of the world, for thousands of years. Goldfish originated about a thousand years ago in carp farms in China, and the Roman Empire farmed oysters and other seafood. Today, half of the seafood eaten in the U.S. is farmed. To help meet the growing global demand for seafood, aquaculture is growing fast. |
The environmental impact of fish farming varies widely, depending on the species being farmed, the methods used and where the farm is located. When good practices are used, it's possible to farm seafood in a way that has very little impact to the environment. Such operations limit habitat damage, disease, escapes of farmed fish and the use of wild fish as feed. |
Abbreviation |
An abbreviation is a shorter way to write a word or phrase. People use abbreviations for words that they write a lot. The English language occasionally uses the apostrophe mark ' to show that a word is written in a shorter way, but some abbreviations do not use this mark. More often, they use periods, especially the ones that come from the Latin language. Common Latin abbreviations include i.e. [id est] "that is", e.g. [exempli gratia] "for example", and et al. [et alia] "and others". |
Some new abbreviations have been created by scientists, by workers in companies and governments, and by people using the Internet. |
People often think words are abbreviations when in fact they are acronyms. |
Here are examples of common acronyms: The word "radar" is an acronym for "Radio Detection and Ranging". The name of the large computer company IBM comes from the words "International Business Machines". The name of the part of the United States government that sends rockets into outer space is NASA, from the words "National Aeronautics and Space Administration". When people using the Internet think that something is very funny, they sometimes write "LOL" to mean "Laughing Out Loud". People sometimes write "ASAP" for "As Soon As Possible". |
Angel |
In many mythologies and religions, an angel is a good spirit. The word angel comes from the Greek word "angelos" which means "messenger". Angels appear frequently in the Old Testament, the New Testament, Qur'an and Aqdas. |
The study of Angels is called Angelology. |
Angels are powerful, smart spirits that obey God's commands and praise him with singing and they have male (masculine)gender, but without any sex. They sometimes appear to humans in human form. They can deliver messages to people in person or in dreams. Angels that are named in the Bible are Michael (called a "chief prince"), Gabriel (known for telling Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus), and Raphael (in the Apocryphal Book of Tobit). The Ethiopian Book of Enoch also lists four Archangels which watch over the four quadrants of heaven; Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel. Lucifer is also known as an angel in the Bible. |
Ezekiel 28:13-14 |
13. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. |
14. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. |
It describes the sound of their wings, "like the roar of rushing waters." |
Ezekiel 10:5-7 ; Ezekiel 10:8 reveals that they have hands like a man under their wings . |
Ezekiel 1:7 KJV reveals that they look like man but are different because they have "straight feet" and four wings and four faces. |
Ezekiel ch 1, and 10 describe the cherubim creatures ascending and descending from the earth with wheels. Ezekiel 1:14-20 ; Ezekiel 10:16 |
Ezekiel 10:9-13 describes what the wheels appeared to look like, and how they moved around, how they moved or flew through the sky quickly but turned not as they went; and how the inside workings of the wheels appeared to be "a wheel in the midst of a wheel" and that the color of the wheels was the color of "Amber" Stone. There are four separate wheels in both accounts, one for each single cherub which is there. |
They are often shown in art as having wings and a halo. The wings represent their speed, and the halo represents their holiness. |
The cherubim in art always appear as baby faced angels with very small non useful wings. |
The cherubim statue or bronze casting of cherubim in the Temple of Solomon depicted them as two four winged creatures whose wings touched at the peak of the ark that they were making. |
The same cherubim creatures were said to be cast in gold on top of the Ark of the Covenant. Casting metal is one of the oldest forms of artwork, and was attempted by Leonardo da Vinci. |
Seeing repetitive numbers are thought to be associated with numerology, also referred to as angel numbers. It is believed that angels communicate with humans through repetitive appearances of numbers. |
Ad hominem |
Ad hominem is a Latin word for a type of argument. It is a word often used in rhetoric. Rhetoric is the science of speaking well, and convincing other people of your ideas. |
Translated to English, "ad hominem" means "against the person". In other words, when someone makes an ad hominem, they are attacking the person they are arguing against, instead of what they are saying. |
The term comes from the Latin word "homo", which means human. "Hominem" is a gender neutral version of the word "homo". In ancient Rome it referred to all free men, or in other words, all free human beings. |
Ad hominem can be a way to use reputation, rumors and hearsay to change the minds of other people listening. When a social network has already excluded or exiled one person, or applied a negative label to them, this can work more often. |
It is most of the time considered to be a weak and poor argument. In courts and in diplomacy ad hominems are not appreciated. |
Ad hominems are not wrong every time. For example, when people think that someone can't be trusted, things that they have said previously can be doubted. |
In logic, a proof is something that starts with premises, and goes through a few logical arguments, to reach a conclusion. |
In this example it can be seen that the (completely unrelated) fact that person A is uneducated and poor is used to prove that abortion should not be illegal. |
Native American |
Native Americans (also called Aboriginal Americans, American Indians, Amerindians or indigenous peoples of the Americas) are the people and their descendants, who were in the Americas when Europeans arrived. |
Sometimes these people are called Indians, but this may be confusing, because it is the same word used for people from India. When Christopher Columbus explored, he did not know about the Americas. He was in the Caribbean but thought he was in the East Indies, so he called the people Indians. |
There are many different tribes of Native American people, with many different languages. Some tribes were hunter-gatherers who moved from place to place. Others lived in one place and built cities and kingdoms. |
Many Native Americans died after the Europeans came to the Americas. There were diseases that came with the Europeans but were new to the Native Americans. There were battles with the Europeans. Many native people were hurt, killed, or forced to leave their homes by settlers who took their lands. |
Today, there are more than three million Native Americans in Canada and the U.S. combined. About 51 million more Native Americans live in Latin America. Many Native Americans still speak native languages and have their own cultural practices, while others have adopted some parts of Western culture. Many Native Americans face problems with discrimination and racism. |
The ancestors of Native Americans came to the Americas from Asia. Some of them may have come to America 15,000 years ago when Alaska was connected to Siberia by the Bering land bridge. |
The earliest people in the Americas came from Siberia when there was an ice bridge across the Bering Strait. The cold but mainly grassy plain which connected Siberia with Canada is called Beringia. It is reckoned that a few thousand people arrived in Beringia from eastern Siberia during the Last Glacial Maximum before moving into the Americas sometime after 16,500 years before the present (BP). This would have occurred as the American glaciers blocking the way southward melted, but before the bridge was covered by the sea about 11,000 years BP. |
Before European colonization, Beringia was inhabited by the Yupik peoples on both sides of the straits. This culture remains in the region today, with others. In 2012, the governments of Russia and the United States announced a plan to formally establish "a transboundary area of shared Beringian heritage". Among other things this agreement would establish close ties between the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument in the United States and Beringia National Park in Russia. |
Native Americans are divided into many small nations, called First Nations in Canada and tribes elsewhere. |
Each Native American tribe has their own culture. The cultures can be grouped together depending on region. For example, the tribes living in Mesoamerica have similar cultures. |
Native Americans ate many different things depending on where they lived. |
Native Americans from Mesoamerica introduced vanilla, avocados, and chocolate to the world. |
Before Europeans came, the native peoples of the Americans practiced many different religions. Each tribe had their own different beliefs. |
Today, many Native Americans practice Christianity, a religion that was brought to the Americas by Europeans. Meanwhile, others still practice their own religions. |
Native Americans today speak over a thousand different languages. Some of these languages had writing systems before Europeans came. |
Many of these languages are endangered because more people are speaking European languages and not teaching Native American languages to their kids. |
Native Americans make musical instruments using the things around them. |
Native Americans make a lot of different art. |
According to the 2010 United States census, 0.9% of Americans say they are Native American, 2.9 million people, and 1.7% of Americans say they are both Native American and something else. They are not evenly spread out through the United States. About a third of the people in Alaska are Native Alaskan and about a sixth of the people in Oklahoma are Native American. |
In the United States, most Native Americans live in cities. About 28% of Native Americans live on reservations. Many Native Americans are poor, and 24% are extremely poor. The history of violence against Native Americans persists today in higher rates of violence against Native American people than white people. |
About 40% of the people of Guatemala identify as Native American. Many indigenous groups in the country are descendants of the Maya. |
Many Native Americans in Guatemala are poor. Many of them have left the country to find better jobs elsewhere. |
The majority of Bolivians belong to indigenous groups. |
In the later half of the 20th century, many Native Americans started to protest the unfair treatment they experienced from the societies they lived in. |
Some Native Americans have become famous in politics. For example, an Aymara man named Evo Morales was elected as president of Bolivia in 2005. He was the first indigenous presidential candidate in Bolivia and South America. |
Apple |
The apple tree (Malus domestica) is a tree that grows apples. It is best known for this juicy, tasty fruit. The tree is grown worldwide. Its fruit is low-cost, and is harvested all over the world. |
Applewood is a type of wood that comes from this tree. |
The apple tree comes from southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and northwestern part of China. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe. They were brought to North America by European settlers. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures. |
Apples are generally propagated by grafting, although wild apples grow readily from seed. Apple trees are large if grown from seed, but small if grafted onto roots (rootstock). There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples, with a range of desired characteristics. Different cultivars are bred for various tastes and uses: cooking, eating raw and cider production are the most common uses. |
Trees and fruit are attacked by fungi, bacteria and pests. In 2010, the fruit's genome was sequenced as part of research on disease control and selective breeding in apple production. |
Worldwide production of apples in 2013 was 90.8 million tonnes. China grew 49% of the total. |
The apple has a small, leaf-shedding tree that grows up to tall. The apple tree has a broad crown with thick twigs. |
The leaves are alternately arranged simple ovals. They are 5 to 12 centimetres long and 3–6centimetres (1.2–2.4in) wide. It has a sharp top with a soft underside. Blossoms come out in spring at the same time that the leaves begin to bud. The flowers are white. They also have a slightly pink color. They are five petaled, and 2.5 to 3.5 centimetres (0.98 to 1.4 in) in diameter. The fruit matures in autumn. It is usually 5 to 9 centimetres (2.0 to 3.5 in) in diameter. There are five carpels arranged in a star in the middle of the fruit. Every carpel has one to three seeds. |
The wild ancestor of apple trees is "Malus sieversii". They grow wild in the mountains of Central Asia in the north of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang, China, and possibly also "Malus sylvestris". Unlike domesticated apples, their leaves become red in autumn. They are being used recently to develop "Malus domestica" to grow in colder climates. |
The apple tree was possibly the earliest tree to be cultivated. Its fruits have become better over thousands of years. It is said that Alexander the Great discovered dwarf apples in Asia Minor in 300 BC. Asia and Europe have used winter apples as an important food for thousands of years. From when Europeans arrived, Argentina and the United States have used apples as food as well. Apples were brought to North America in the 1600s. The first apple orchard on the North American continent was said to be near Boston in 1625. In the 1900s, costly fruit industries, where the apple was a very important species, began developing. |
In Norse mythology, the goddess Iðunn gives apples to the gods in "Prose Edda" (written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson) that makes them young forever. English scholar H. R. Ellis Davidson suggests that apples were related to religious practices in Germanic paganism. It was from there, she claims, that Norse paganism developed. She points out that buckets of apples were discovered in the place of burial for the Oseberg ship in Norway. She also remarks that fruit and nuts (Iðunn having been described as changing into a nut in "Skáldskaparmál") have been discovered in the early graves of the Germanic peoples in England. They have also been discovered somewhere else on the continent of Europe. She suggests that this may have had a symbolic meaning. Nuts are still a symbol of fertility in Southwest England. |
Sometimes apples are eaten after they are cooked. Often apples are eaten uncooked. Apples can also be made into drinks. Apple juice and apple cider are apple drinks. |
The flesh of the fruit is firm with a taste anywhere from sour to sweet. Apples used for cooking are sour, and need to be cooked with sugar, while other apples are sweet, and do not need cooking. There are some seeds at the core, that can be removed with a tool that removes the core, or by carefully using a knife. |
The scientific name of the apple tree genus in the Latin language is "Malus". Most apples that people grow are of the "Malus domestica" species. |
Most apples are good to eat raw (not cooked), and are also used in many kinds of baked foods, such as apple pie. Apples are cooked until they are soft to make apple sauce. |
Apples are also made into the drinks apple juice and cider. Usually, cider contains a little alcohol, about as much as beer. The regions of Brittany in France and Cornwall in England are known for their apple ciders. |
If one wants to grow a certain type of apple it is not possible to do this by planting a seed from the wanted type. The seed will have DNA from the apple that the seeds came from, but it will also have DNA from the apple flower that pollinated the seeds, which may well be a different type. This means that the tree which would grow from planting would be a mixture of two. In order to grow a certain type of apple, a small twig, or 'scion', is cut from the tree that grows the type of apple desired, and then added on to a specially grown stump called a rootstock. The tree that grows will only create apples of the type needed. |
There are more than 7,500 known cultivars (varieties) of apples. Different cultivars are available for temperate and subtropical climates. One large collection of over 2,100 apple cultivars is at the National Fruit Collection in England. Most of these cultivars are grown for eating fresh (dessert apples). However, some are grown simply for cooking or making cider. Cider apples are usually too tart to eat immediately. However, they give cider a rich flavor that dessert apples cannot. |
Most popular apple cultivars are soft but crisp. Colorful skin, easy shipping, disease resistance, 'Red Delicious' apple shape, and popular flavor are also needed. Modern apples are usually sweeter than older cultivars. This is because popular tastes in apples have become different. Most North Americans and Europeans enjoy sweet apples. Extremely sweet apples with hardly any acid taste are popular in Asia and India. |
In the United Kingdom there are about 3000 different types of apples. The most common apple type grown in England is the 'Bramley seedling', which is a popular cooking apple. |
Apple orchards are not as common as they were in the early 1900s, when apples were rarely brought in from other countries. Organizations such as Common Ground teach people about the importance of rare and local varieties of fruit. |
Many apples are grown in temperate parts of the United States and Canada. In many areas where apple growing is important, people have huge celebrations: |
There are many different varieties of apples, including: |
Apples are in the group Maloideae. This is a subfamily of the family "Rosaceae". They are in the same subfamily as pears. |
Abrahamic religion |