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๐Ÿ”— Yo (App)

๐Ÿ”— Israel ๐Ÿ”— Apps

Yo is a social mobile application for iOS, Android, and formerly also Windows Phone. Initially, the application's only function was to send the user's friends the word "yo" as a text and audio notification, but it has since been updated to enable users to attach links and location to their "Yo"s.

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๐Ÿ”— Indian Vulture Crisis

๐Ÿ”— Environment ๐Ÿ”— India ๐Ÿ”— Birds

Nine species of vulture can be found living in India, but most are now in danger of extinction after a rapid and major population collapse in recent decades. In the early 1980s, three species of Gyps vultures (the white-rumped vulture, the long-billed vulture and the slender-billed vulture) had a combined estimated population of 40 million in South Asia, but as of 2017, the total population numbered only 19,000 (6,000, 12,000, and 1,000 respectively). With a catastrophic loss of over 99.95% of all the vultures in South Asia, the Indian vulture crisis represents the sharpest decline of any animal known to man in the same number of years. A major contributing factor in declining populations of vultures is believed to be widespread use of drugs such as diclofenac, once commonly used as a livestock anti-inflammatory drug. Veterinary usage of diclofenac has been banned in India since 2006. The IUCN Red Data Book has listed Gyps bengalensis as "critically endangered". In winter 2012, 56 vultures in three species (Eurasian griffon, cinereous vulture, Egyptian vulture) and 10 steppe eagles were found dead at a dumping site in Jorbeer, Rajasthan. Six Eurasian griffons were found dead in May 2013 due to dehydration and wing weakness. The area has been declared as a conserved forest area, but the carcass dumping site is not part of the protected area.

The dramatic vulture decline observed across India presents a range of ecological threats, by influencing the numbers and distribution of other scavenging species. Increased feral dog populations have been reported all over India, posing many associated disease risks such as rabies to humans and wildlife. India already accounts for a very high incidence of rabies cases, and an absolute shortage of quality anti-rabies vaccine in rural areas can aggravate the problem even further. Similarly, increased crow populations at carcass sites near settlement areas pose a risk of infections to poultry, domesticated birds, and humans. Prevalence and concentration of diclofenac residues in ungulate carcasses is important for India's threatened vulture populations. A small proportion (< 0.8%) of ungulate carcasses containing lethal levels of diclofenac is enough to cause the observed rapid decline of vultures population. (Bohra D L)

Vultures previously played an important role in public sanitation in India and their disappearance has resulted in a number of problems, and as such numerous conservation schemes are in place to assist in the recovery of vulture populations.

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๐Ÿ”— Bertie the Brain

Bertie the Brain is one of the first games developed during the early history of video games. It was built in Toronto by Josef Kates for the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition. The four meter (13 foot) tall computer allowed exhibition attendees to play a game of tic-tac-toe against an algorithm, presented by its creators as artificial intelligence. The player entered a move on a keypad in the form of a three-by-three grid, and the game played out on a grid of lights overhead. The machine had an adjustable difficulty level. After two weeks on display by Rogers Majestic, the machine was disassembled at the end of the exhibition and largely forgotten as a curiosity.

Kates built the game to showcase his additron tube, a miniature version of the vacuum tube, though the transistor overtook it in computer development shortly thereafter. Patent issues prevented the additron tube from being used in computers besides Bertie before it was no longer useful. Bertie the Brain is a candidate for the first video game, as it was potentially the first computer game to have any sort of visual display of the game. It appeared only three years after the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game to use an electronic display. Bertie's use of light bulbs rather than a screen with real-time visual graphics, however, much less moving graphics, does not meet some definitions of a video game.

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๐Ÿ”— Poincarรฉ Recurrence Theorem

๐Ÿ”— Physics ๐Ÿ”— Systems ๐Ÿ”— Systems/Dynamical systems

In mathematics and physics, the Poincarรฉ recurrence theorem states that certain dynamical systems will, after a sufficiently long but finite time, return to a state arbitrarily close to (for continuous state systems), or exactly the same as (for discrete state systems), their initial state.

The Poincarรฉ recurrence time is the length of time elapsed until the recurrence. This time may vary greatly depending on the exact initial state and required degree of closeness. The result applies to isolated mechanical systems subject to some constraints, e.g., all particles must be bound to a finite volume. The theorem is commonly discussed in the context of ergodic theory, dynamical systems and statistical mechanics. Systems to which the Poincarรฉ recurrence theorem applies are called conservative systems.

The theorem is named after Henri Poincarรฉ, who discussed it in 1890 and proved by Constantin Carathรฉodory using measure theory in 1919.

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๐Ÿ”— List of Important Publications in Computer Science

๐Ÿ”— Computing ๐Ÿ”— Computer science ๐Ÿ”— Lists ๐Ÿ”— History of Science ๐Ÿ”— Bibliographies ๐Ÿ”— Bibliographies/Science

This is a list of important publications in computer science, organized by field.

Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:

  • Topic creator โ€“ A publication that created a new topic
  • Breakthrough โ€“ A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly
  • Influence โ€“ A publication which has significantly influenced the world or has had a massive impact on the teaching of computer science.

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๐Ÿ”— Piri Reis Map

๐Ÿ”— Maps ๐Ÿ”— Turkey ๐Ÿ”— Paranormal

The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis (pronouncedย [piหหˆษพiห ษพeis]). Approximately one third of the map survives; it shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accuracy. Various Atlantic islands, including the Azores and Canary Islands, are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia and possibly Japan.

The map's historical importance lies in its demonstration of the extent of global exploration of the New World by approximately 1510, and in its claim to have used a map of Christopher Columbus, otherwise lost, as a source. Piri also stated that he had used ten Arab sources and four Indian maps sourced from the Portuguese. More recently, the map has been the focus of claims for the pre-modern exploration of the Antarctic coast.

The Piri Reis map is in the Library of the Topkapฤฑ Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, but is not usually on display to the public.

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๐Ÿ”— Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater

๐Ÿ”— Geology

The Chesapeake Bay impact crater was formed by a bolide that impacted the eastern shore of North America about 35.5 ยฑ 0.3 million years ago, in the late Eocene epoch. It is one of the best-preserved "wet-target" impact craters in the world.

Continued slumping of sediments over the rubble of the crater has helped shape the Chesapeake Bay.

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๐Ÿ”— Derveni Papyrus

๐Ÿ”— Philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophical literature ๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Classical Greece and Rome ๐Ÿ”— Greece ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Ancient philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Archaeology

The Derveni papyrus is an Ancient Greek papyrus roll that was discovered in 1962 at the archaeological site of Derveni, near Thessaloniki, in Central Macedonia. A philosophical treatise, the text is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem, a theogony concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras. The roll dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving manuscript. The poem itself was originally composed near the end of the 5th century BC, and "in the fields of Greek religion, the sophistic movement, early philosophy, and the origins of literary criticism it is unquestionably the most important textual discovery of the 20th century." While interim editions and translations were published over the subsequent years, the manuscript in its entirety was first published in 2006.

๐Ÿ”— 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31

๐Ÿ”— Mathematics

In geometry, the problem of dividing a circle into areas by means of an inscribed polygon with n sides in such a way as to maximise the number of areas created by the edges and diagonals, sometimes called Moser's circle problem, has a solution by an inductive method. The greatest possible number of regions, rG = (โ€‰n
4
โ€‰) + (โ€‰n
2
โ€‰) + 1
, giving the sequence 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31, 57, 99, 163, 256, ... (OEIS:ย A000127). Though the first five terms match the geometric progression 2n โˆ’ 1, it diverges at n = 6, showing the risk of generalising from only a few observations.

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๐Ÿ”— Indentation Style: Notable Styles

๐Ÿ”— Computing

In computer programming, indentation style is a convention, a.k.a. style, governing the indentation of blocks of source code. An indentation style generally involves consistent width of whitespace (indentation size) before each line of a block, so that the lines of code appear to be related, and dictates whether to use space or tab characters for the indentation whitespace.

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