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πŸ”— List of Animals by Number of Neurons

πŸ”— Animal anatomy πŸ”— Neuroscience πŸ”— Animals

The following are two lists of animals ordered by the size of their nervous system. The first list shows number of neurons in their entire nervous system, indicating their overall neural complexity. The second list shows the number of neurons in the structure that has been found to be representative of animal intelligence. The human brain contains 86 billion neurons, with 16 billion neurons in the cerebral cortex.

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πŸ”— Intelligent Disobedience

πŸ”— Dogs πŸ”— Psychology

Intelligent disobedience occurs where a service animal trained to help a disabled person goes directly against the owner's instructions in an effort to make a better decision. This behavior is a part of the dog's training and is central to a service animal's success on the job. The concept of intelligent disobedience has been in use and a common part of service animals' training since at least 1936.

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πŸ”— Founder's Syndrome

πŸ”— Business

Founder's syndrome (also founderitis) is the difficulty faced by organizations where one or more founders maintain disproportionate power and influence following the effective initial establishment of the project, leading to a wide range of problems for the organization. The passion and charisma of the founder(s), sources of the initial creativity and productivity of the organization, become limiting or destructive factors. The syndrome occurs in both non-profit and for-profit organizations. It may simply limit further growth and success of the project, or it may lead to bitter factionalism and divisions as the scale of demands made on the organization increases, or it may result in outright failure. There are ways in which a founder or organization can respond and grow beyond this situation.

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πŸ”— Two capacitor paradox

πŸ”— Electronics

The two capacitor paradox or capacitor paradox is a paradox, or counterintuitive thought experiment, in electric circuit theory. The thought experiment is usually described as follows: Two identical capacitors are connected in parallel with an open switch between them. One of the capacitors is charged with a voltage of V i {\displaystyle V_{i}} , the other is uncharged. When the switch is closed, some of the charge Q = C V i {\displaystyle Q=CV_{i}} on the first capacitor flows into the second, reducing the voltage on the first and increasing the voltage on the second. When a steady state is reached and the current goes to zero, the voltage on the two capacitors must be equal since they are connected together. Since they both have the same capacitance C {\displaystyle C} the charge will be divided equally between the capacitors so each capacitor will have a charge of Q 2 {\displaystyle {Q \over 2}} and a voltage of V f = Q 2 C = V i 2 {\displaystyle V_{f}={Q \over 2C}={V_{i} \over 2}} . At the beginning of the experiment the total initial energy W i {\displaystyle W_{i}} in the circuit is the energy stored in the charged capacitor:

W i = 1 2 C V i 2 {\displaystyle W_{i}={1 \over 2}CV_{i}^{2}} .

At the end of the experiment the final energy W f {\displaystyle W_{f}} is equal to the sum of the energy in the two capacitors

W f = 1 2 C V f 2 + 1 2 C V f 2 = C V f 2 = C ( V i 2 ) 2 = 1 4 C V i 2 = 1 2 W i {\displaystyle W_{f}={1 \over 2}CV_{f}^{2}+{1 \over 2}CV_{f}^{2}=CV_{f}^{2}=C({V_{i} \over 2})^{2}={1 \over 4}CV_{i}^{2}={1 \over 2}W_{i}}

Thus the final energy W f {\displaystyle W_{f}} is equal to half of the initial energy W i {\displaystyle W_{i}} . Where did the other half of the initial energy go?

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πŸ”— Pelorus Jack

πŸ”— Cetaceans πŸ”— New Zealand

Pelorus Jack (fl. 1888 – April 1912) was a Risso's dolphin that was famous for meeting and escorting ships through a stretch of water in Cook Strait, New Zealand, between 1888 and 1912. Pelorus Jack was usually spotted in Admiralty Bay between Cape Francis and Collinet Point, near French Pass, a notoriously dangerous channel used by ships travelling between Wellington and Nelson.

Pelorus Jack was shot at from a passing ship, and was later protected by a 1904 New Zealand law.

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πŸ”— The Great Plague of Marseille

πŸ”— France πŸ”— Death

The Great Plague of Marseille was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in western Europe. Arriving in Marseille, France in 1720, the disease killed a total of 100,000 people: 50,000 in the city during the next two years and another 50,000 to the north in surrounding provinces and towns.

While economic activity took only a few years to recover, as trade expanded to the West Indies and Latin America, it was not until 1765 that the population returned to its pre-1720 level.

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πŸ”— Pantai Remis Landslide

πŸ”— Occupational Safety and Health πŸ”— Malaysia

The Pantai Remis landslide was a rock fall and flood that occurred on 21 October 1993, near Pantai Remis in Perak, Malaysia. The landslide took place in an abandoned open cast tin mine (in a region of the state well known for its tin mining industry) close to the Strait of Malacca. Video footage shows the rapid collapse of the working face closest the sea, allowing complete flooding of the mine and forming a new cove measuring approximately 0.5Β km2 (0.19Β sqΒ mi).

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πŸ”— Norton Commander

πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Computing/Software

Norton Commander (NC) is a discontinued prototypical orthodox file manager (OFM), written by John Socha and released by Peter Norton Computing (later acquired in 1990 by the Symantec corporation). NC provides a text-based user interface for managing files on top of MS-DOS. It was officially produced between 1986 and 1998. The last MS-DOS version of Norton Commander, 5.51, was released on July 1, 1998.

A related product, Norton Desktop, a graphical shell for MS-DOS and Windows, succeeded Norton Commander. It came in two variants, Norton Desktop for DOS and Norton Desktop for Windows.

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πŸ”— Hypothetical types of biochemistry

πŸ”— Biology πŸ”— Science Fiction πŸ”— Chemistry

Hypothetical types of biochemistry are forms of biochemistry speculated to be scientifically viable but not proven to exist at this time. The kinds of living organisms currently known on Earth all use carbon compounds for basic structural and metabolic functions, water as a solvent, and DNA or RNA to define and control their form. If life exists on other planets or moons, it may be chemically similar; it is also possible that there are organisms with quite different chemistriesβ€”for instance, involving other classes of carbon compounds, compounds of another element, or another solvent in place of water.

The possibility of life-forms being based on "alternative" biochemistries is the topic of an ongoing scientific discussion, informed by what is known about extraterrestrial environments and about the chemical behaviour of various elements and compounds. It is of interest in synthetic biology and is also a common subject in science fiction.

The element silicon has been much discussed as a hypothetical alternative to carbon. Silicon is in the same group as carbon on the periodic table and, like carbon, it is tetravalent. Hypothetical alternatives to water include ammonia, which, like water, is a polar molecule, and cosmically abundant; and non-polar hydrocarbon solvents such as methane and ethane, which are known to exist in liquid form on the surface of Titan.

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πŸ”— McLibel Case

πŸ”— Law πŸ”— Freedom of speech

McDonald's Corporation v Steel & Morris [1997] EWHC QB 366, known as "the McLibel case", was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris (often referred to as "The McLibel Two") over a factsheet critical of the company. Each of two hearings in English courts found some of the leaflet's contested claims to be libellous and others to be true.

The original case lasted nearly ten years which, according to the BBC, made it the longest-running libel case in English history. McDonald's announced it did not plan to collect the Β£40,000 it was awarded by the courts. Following the decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in Steel & Morris v United Kingdom the pair had been denied a fair trial, in breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to a fair trial) and their conduct should have been protected by Article 10 of the Convention, which protects the right to freedom of expression. The court awarded a judgement of Β£57,000 against the UK government. McDonald's itself was not involved in, or a party to, this action, as applications to the ECHR are independent cases filed against the relevant state.

Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach made a documentary film, McLibel, about the case.

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