The Inaccessible Island rail (Laterallus rogersi) is a bird found only on Inaccessible Island in the South Atlantic Tristan archipelago. This rail, the smallest extant flightless bird, was described by physician Percy Lowe in 1923. The adult has brown plumage, a black bill, black feet, and red eyes. It occupies most habitats on the island, from the beaches to the central plateau, feeding on a variety of small invertebrates and some plant matter. Pairs are territorial and monogamous; both parents incubate the eggs and raise the chicks. The rail's adaptations to living on a tiny island at high densities include a low basal metabolic rate, small clutch sizes, and flightlessness. Unlike many other oceanic islands, Inaccessible Island has remained free from introduced predators, allowing this species to flourish while many other flightless rails have gone extinct. The species is nevertheless considered vulnerable, due to the danger of a single catastrophe wiping out the small, isolated population. (Full article...)
slave trade until 1808; the latter required direct taxes to be apportioned among the states according to their populations. Furthermore, the Constitution precludes Congress from depriving a state of equal representation in the Senate without its consent. (more...
Society of Friends. At Derby in 1650 Fox was imprisoned for blasphemy; a judge mocked Fox's exhortation to "tremble at the word of the Lord", calling him and his followers "Quakers" — now the common name of the Society of Friends. Living in a time of great social upheaval, he rebelled against the religious and political consensus by proposing an unusual and uncompromising approach to the Christian faith. His journal is a text popular even among non-Quakers for its vivid account of his personal journey. (more...
Baguirmi language. This language first came to the attention of academic linguists in 1977, through Pascal Boyeldieu's fieldwork in 1975 and 1978. His fieldwork was based for the most part on a single speaker, M. Djouam Kadi of Damtar. (more...
guerrilla war and after the end of hostilities. The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since. (more...
tracked and armouredcombatvehicle designed primarily to destroy enemy ground forces by direct fire. A modern main battle tank, designed predominantly for combat, is the most powerful direct-fire land-based weapon. It is distinguished from other armoured fighting vehicles primarily by its heavy armour and armament. It can cross rough terrain and move relatively quickly in short bursts, but is power-, maintenance-, and ammunition-hungry and is not designed for sustained operations. Tanks were first used in World War I and have undergone many generations of design evolution since then. Tanks are now a fairly mature technology, but significant improvements continue to be made in tank subsystems. (more...
Second World War was acute, but recent decades have brought a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector, the proceeds of North Sea oil, and latterly a devolved parliament. (more...
2001 general election and has so far declined the customary life peerage and seat in the House of Lords that is given to former Prime Ministers. (more...
Chinatown is a general name for an urban region containing a large population of Chinese people within a non-Chinese society. Chinatowns are most common in Southeast Asia and North America, but growing Chinatowns can be found in Europe and beyond. Chinatowns were formed in the 19th century in many areas of the United States and Canada as a result of discriminatory land laws which forbade the sale of land to Chinese outside of a restricted geographical area and which promoted the segregation of people of different ethnicities. However, the location of a Chinatown in a particular city may change over time. (more...)
stress while also being light-weight, cheap, and easy to manufacture. Today's technology does not meet these requirements without an unreasonable cost associated with construction, but optimists hold that the space elevator might become a reality in the near future. (more...
