Random Articles (Page 371)
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π Bardcore
Bardcore (from the Celtic-origin word βbardβ meaning βpoetβ or βstorytellerβ) or tavernwave is a 2020 internet phenomenon consisting of medievalised remakes of hit pop songs.
Discussed on
- "Bardcore" | 2020-09-02 | 454 Upvotes 164 Comments
π Penal exception clause β prohibits slavery, except as a punishment for a crime
In the United States, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution states the following:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
This prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, but leaves an exception for punishment for a crime of which one has been convicted. Various commentators have accused states of abusing this provision to re-establish systems similar to slavery, or of otherwise exploiting such labor in a manner unfair to local labor.
Starting in the late 2010s and extending into the mid-2020s, a movement emerged to repeal the exception clause from both the federal and state constitutions. As of February 2026, eight states had joined Rhode Island in repealing the exception clause from their state constitutions, while 26 states' constitutions make no mention of either slavery or involuntary servitude and 15 states retain an exception clause.
Discussed on
- "Penal exception clause β prohibits slavery, except as a punishment for a crime" | 2026-01-12 | 13 Upvotes 2 Comments
π Yarn Bombing
Yarn bombing (or yarnbombing) is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk. It is also called wool bombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting, or graffiti knitting.
π User: Junnn11
Arthropod enthusiast, mainly focus on Panarthropod head problem, phylogeny across arthropod subphyla and stem lineage, basal chelicerates, dinocaridids and lobopodians. Sometime drawing stuff, not so well in english, mainly active at Japanese Wikipedia.
Japanese: ε©η¨θ :Junnn11
Commons: User:Junnn11
Twitter: ni075
Discussed on
- "User: Junnn11" | 2023-04-19 | 747 Upvotes 101 Comments
π Last universal ancestor
The last universal common ancestor (LUCA), also called the last universal ancestor (LUA),Β or concestor, is the most recent population of organisms from which all organisms now living on Earth have a common descent, the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. (A related concept is that of progenote.) LUCA is not thought to be the first life on Earth but only one of many early organisms, all the others becoming extinct.
While there is no specific fossil evidence of LUCA, it can be studied by comparing the genomes of all modern organisms, its descendants. By this means, a 2016 study identified a set of 355 genes most likely to have been present in LUCA. (However, some of those genes could have developed later, then spread universally by horizontal gene transfer between archaea and bacteria.) The genes describe a complex life form with many co-adapted features, including transcription and translation mechanisms to convert information from DNA to RNA to proteins. The study concluded that the LUCA probably lived in the high-temperature water of deep sea vents near ocean-floor magma flows.
Studies from 2000 to 2018 have suggested an increasingly ancient time for LUCA. In 2000, estimations suggested LUCA existed 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago in the Paleoarchean era, a few hundred million years after the earliest fossil evidence of life, for which there are several candidates ranging in age from 3.48 to 4.28 billion years ago. A 2018 study from the University of Bristol, applying a molecular clock model, places the LUCA shortly after 4.5 billion years ago, within the Hadean.
Charles Darwin first proposed the theory of universal common descent through an evolutionary process in his book On the Origin of Species in 1859: "Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed." Later biologists have separated the problem of the origin of life from that of the LUCA.
Discussed on
- "Last universal ancestor" | 2015-04-05 | 63 Upvotes 24 Comments
π 2018 Hawaii false missile alert
On the morning of Saturday, January 13, 2018, a ballistic missile alert was accidentally issued via the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert System over television, radio, and cellphones in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The alert stated that there was an incoming ballistic missile threat to Hawaii, advised residents to seek shelter, and concluded: "This is not a drill". The message was sent at 8:07Β a.m. local time. Civil defense outdoor warning sirens were not authorized by the state.
Thirty-eight minutes and 13 seconds later, state officials blamed a miscommunication during a drill at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency for the first message. Governor David Ige publicly apologized for the erroneous alert. The Federal Communications Commission and the Hawaii House of Representatives launched investigations into the incident, leading to the resignation of the state's emergency management administrator.
Discussed on
- "2018 Hawaii false missile alert" | 2021-04-20 | 16 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Brainbow
Brainbow is a process by which individual neurons in the brain can be distinguished from neighboring neurons using fluorescent proteins. By randomly expressing different ratios of red, green, and blue derivatives of green fluorescent protein in individual neurons, it is possible to flag each neuron with a distinctive color. This process has been a major contribution to the field of connectomics, traditionally known as hodology, which is the study of neural connections in the brain.
The technique was originally developed in 2007 by a team led by Jeff W. Lichtman and Joshua R. Sanes, both at Harvard University. The original technique has recently been adapted for use with other model organisms including Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Arabidopsis thaliana.
While earlier labeling techniques allowed for the mapping of only a few neurons, this new method allows more than 100 differently mapped neurons to be simultaneously and differentially illuminated in this manner. The resulting images can be quite striking and have won awards in science photography competitions.
Discussed on
- "Brainbow" | 2020-07-26 | 16 Upvotes 3 Comments
π Mike the Headless Chicken
Mike the Headless Chicken (April 20, 1945 β March 17, 1947), also known as Miracle Mike, was a Wyandotte chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off. Although the story was thought by many to be a hoax, the bird's owner took him to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish the facts.
Discussed on
- "Mike the Headless Chicken" | 2024-12-24 | 38 Upvotes 6 Comments
- "Mike the Headless Chicken" | 2015-11-11 | 52 Upvotes 14 Comments
π The Magic SysRq key
The magic SysRq key is a key combination understood by the Linux kernel, which allows the user to perform various low-level commands regardless of the system's state. It is often used to recover from freezes, or to reboot a computer without corrupting the filesystem. Its effect is similar to the computer's hardware reset button (or power switch) but with many more options and much more control.
This key combination provides access to powerful features for software development and disaster recovery. In this sense, it can be considered a form of escape sequence. Principal among the offered commands are means to forcibly unmount file systems, kill processes, recover keyboard state, and write unwritten data to disk. With respect to these tasks, this feature serves as a tool of last resort.
The magic SysRq key cannot work under certain conditions, such as a kernel panic or a hardware failure preventing the kernel from running properly.
Discussed on
- "The Magic SysRq key" | 2015-01-10 | 55 Upvotes 10 Comments
π Flux pinning
Flux pinning is the phenomenon where a superconductor is pinned in space above a magnet. The superconductor must be a type-II superconductor because type-I superconductors cannot be penetrated by magnetic fields. The act of magnetic penetration is what makes flux pinning possible. At higher magnetic fields (above Hc1 and below Hc2) the superconductor allows magnetic flux to enter in quantized packets surrounded by a superconducting current vortex (see Quantum vortex). These sites of penetration are known as flux tubes. The number of flux tubes per unit area is proportional to the magnetic field with a constant of proportionality equal to the magnetic flux quantum. On a simple 76 millimeter diameter, 1-micrometer thick disk, next to a magnetic field of 28 kA/m, there are approximately 100 billion flux tubes that hold 70,000 times the superconductor's weight. At lower temperatures the flux tubes are pinned in place and cannot move. This pinning is what holds the superconductor in place thereby allowing it to levitate. This phenomenon is closely related to the Meissner effect, though with one crucial difference β the Meissner effect shields the superconductor from all magnetic fields causing repulsion, unlike the pinned state of the superconductor disk which pins flux, and the superconductor in place.