Wikipedia:Recent additions 189

Did you know...

 * ...that double-stranded RNA viruses cause everything from gastroenteritis in young children to bluetongue disease in livestock?
 * ...that in Amgen v Hoechst, the House of Lords affirmed that an incredible similarity between two patents does not constitute patent infringement in the UK?
 * ...that as Navy production chief during World War II, electric drive pioneer Samuel Murray Robinson became the first staff officer to attain the rank of four-star admiral in the history of the United States Navy?
 * ...that Chris Dodd's 2008 presidential campaign has been endorsed by three members of the famed Kennedy family, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI), Edward Kennedy, Jr., and Eunice Kennedy Shriver?
 * ...that the English engraver John Boydell (pictured) founded the fashionable Shakespeare Gallery in London in 1786, but had to sell it in a lottery in 1804 after he was bankrupted by the Napoleonic Wars?
 * ...that some types of human learning can be described mathematically by Oja's rule, which is commonly used in image processing software?
 * ...that Filipino film producer Narcisa de Leon did not start her career in the film industry till she was 61 years old?
 * ...that the Pompallier Mission is New Zealand's oldest industrial building and printed some of the earliest texts in Māori?
 * ...that xenobiotic metabolism is the set of metabolic pathways that detoxify xenobiotics, such as drugs and poisons?
 * ...that Emma Cunningham was acquitted of the 1857 murder of her landlord because she falsely claimed to be pregnant by him, and Victorian morality prevented doctors from physically examining her?
 * ...that the White House Entrance Hall (pictured) had the President's seal removed from its floor in the early 1950s because President Truman thought it inappropriate to walk across it?
 * ...that a prokaryotic cytoskeleton has been found in prokaryote organisms by recent advances in visualization technology?
 * ...that Roger Wilmut went on from typing out the episode list of a BBC comedy show to become a Guardian Top 10 author of books about British comedy?
 * ...that Chambercombe Manor is said to be one of most haunted buildings in the United Kingdom?
 * ...that the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company produced 90 navy tanker ships in two years, from 1943-1945 and employed over 18,000 people while doing so?
 * ...that noitulovE, a cinema and television advertising campaign for Guinness draught stout, won more awards than any other commercial worldwide in 2006?
 * ...that James Tennant took over from Sarah Mawe as "Mineralogist to Her Majesty" and he supervised the recutting of the Koh-i-Noor diamond?
 * ...that the hazardous Welland Canal Bridge 15 featured a bell ringing whenever a ship made contact, warning the crew to check for damage?
 * ...that the Solomon Courthouse (pictured) has twice served as a post office, and was the setting for a courtroom scene in The Hunted?
 * ...that Rob Carpenter retired from the National Football League after catching his second touchdown in the 1995 NFL playoffs?
 * ...that Mel Rose, the runner-up on the seventh cycle of America's Next Top Model, dropped the "-issa" from her first name because she "didn't need it"?
 * ...that the subject of sex was central to The Antipodes, an English Renaissance play by Richard Brome, first performed by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Salisbury Court Theatre in 1637?
 * ...that Colorado Rep. Stella Garza-Hicks dropped out of high school in the ninth grade?
 * ...that Bertram Fraser-Reid is a Jamaica-born chemist who founded a non-profit organization to find cures for tropical parasitic diseases like malaria?
 * ...that the Champawat tigress and the Tsavo lions had suffered injuries that disabled them from pursuing their natural prey, leading them to become man-eaters?
 * ...that the Barack Obama Muslim rumor has been circulating on the Internet since 2004?
 * ...that a stone run (pictured) is a stable and conspicuous rock landform caused by a myriad of freezing-thawing cycles and also called a stone river, stone stream, or stone sea?
 * ...that the Théâtrophone service (1890-1932) allowed the subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over the telephone lines?
 * ...that the T.G. Richards and Company Store is the oldest brick building in Washington?
 * ...that during the negotiations in Ostrów in 1392, the principal Polish negotiator, Henry of Masovia, bishop of Płock, fell in love with the sister of his opponent, Vytautas the Great?
 * ...that a series of storms in south-east Queensland spawned two of the most powerful tornadoes in recorded Australian history?
 * ...that Arthur Segal was prevented from exhibiting his art in Germany because of his Jewish background?
 * ...that the massacre in Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD in the purges of 1937-1938 was investigated in 1943 during the German invasion of Ukraine and used in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union?
 * ...that U.S. activist Kit Bakke went on from being considered a terrorist with a 400-page FBI file to become a nurse for children with cancer?
 * ...that Italian painter Parmigianino distorted nature for his own artistic purposes in the unfinished Renaissance oil painting Madonna with the Long Neck (pictured)?
 * ...that forest brother Alfred Käärmann hid for 7 years from Soviet officials, spent 15 years in Siberian prison camps, had his passport stamped "annulled" and was banished from Estonia until 1981?
 * ...that flutist Masakazu Yoshizawa was hired by John Williams to play the shakuhachi for the Jurassic Park soundtrack because the instrument sounded "like a dinosaur's cry"?
 * ...that the Allegheny Arsenal explosion on September 17, 1862 was the single largest civilian disaster during the American Civil War?
 * ...that Robert G. Pugh and his son, Robert, Jr., were the first father-son team to present oral arguments together before the United States Supreme Court?
 * ...that the French chemist Louis Pasteur owned a vineyard in the Jura wine region that is still producing wine today?
 * ...that Yegor Ligachev is renowned for being Gorbachev's main critic, even though he has repudiated that in many speeches and his memoirs?
 * ...that the city of Union Valley, Texas, population 226, incorporated in 2007 out of fear of annexation by neighboring cities?
 * ...that the Hyde Park Railroad Station (pictured) in Hyde Park, New York was a day away from demolition when it was leased to a local rail historical society?
 * ...that football referees in England officiate at eleven different levels according to ability, activity and age?
 * ...that Georgia Tech professor Mark Guzdial was the inventor of Swiki, one of the earliest wiki engines?
 * ...that the state symbols of Indiana include water as the official beverage, Salem limestone as the official stone, and the Peony as the official flower?
 * ...that Gordon K. Douglass qualified for the Canadian national canoe paddling team, but was not allowed to go to the 1936 Olympics because he was American?
 * ...that the Telefon Hírmondó was the longest-running telephone newspaper?
 * ...that the aphid Brevicoryne brassicae has been called a "walking mustard oil bomb" due to its use of glucosinolates as a chemical defense mechanism against predators?
 * ...that the ill-fated Yen Bai mutiny proceeded because a messenger sent to delay the mutiny was intercepted?
 * ...that 16th-century English diplomat Francis Bryan disgraced himself by throwing eggs and stones at the common people during a mission to Paris?
 * ...that HMS Amphion (pictured) was sunk in the opening 36 hours of the First World War?
 * ...that the River Bourne in Kent used to power a dozen mills in its 10 mile length?
 * ...that stock investor Ronald S. Baron has nonetheless been nicknamed "the Count" since his student days?
 * ...that the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the first bioterrorism attack in the United States, and one of only two confirmed terrorist uses of biological weapons to harm humans?
 * ...that Rapides-des-Joachims, Quebec has no paved road connection with the rest of Quebec?
 * ...that the first McDonald's restaurant in Eastern Europe was opened March 24 1988 in a former family house in Belgrade, constructed by Serbian architect Dimitrije T. Leko in 1893?
 * ...that the Mongolian Stock Exchange in Ulaanbaatar, the world's smallest by market capitalisation, is housed in a refurbished children's cinema?
 * ...that a Cambridge University society has launched high altitude balloons that have taken a picture of the earth's curvature from a height of 32 km?
 * ...that, while a legislator in Colorado, Dan Gibbs trained as a volunteer firefighter and was deployed to fight the Santiago Fire during the October 2007 California wildfire epidemic?
 * ...that Berlinka (pictured) was a partially constructed highway built by Nazi Germany that was intended to span the Polish Corridor from Berlin to Königsberg, Prussia?
 * ...that the wallet of Scottish curate Arnold Spencer-Smith was found in Captain Scott's Antarctic hut in 1999, about 83 years after Spencer-Smith died in 1916?
 * ...that the Battle of the Espero Convoy during the Mediterranean Campaign in World War II resulted in such a shortage of ammunition that planned Allied convoys to Malta had to be postponed for two weeks?
 * ...that Florida has over 20 official state symbols, including a state soil and a state wildflower?
 * ...that  SantralIstanbul, a modern art museum in Istanbul, Turkey, is located in what was the first power station of the Ottoman Empire?
 * ...that the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Yasui v. United States and its companion case Hirabayashi v. United States that curfews for a minority group were constitutional during war time?
 * ...that Rear-Admiral Horace Hood was posthumously knighted following his death in the destruction of HMS Invincible at the Battle of Jutland in 1916?
 * ...that when Hugh Randall Syme won the George Cross in 1943 for bomb disposal work, he became the most decorated member of the Royal Australian Navy at that time, having already been awarded two George Medals?
 * ...that, during World War II, an anti-submarine boom net (pictured) to defend against torpedoes and submarines spanned the entire length of Sydney Harbour, Australia?
 * ...that U.S. General Omar Bundy, who was awarded the French Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre for his service in World War I, was a veteran of the Indian War campaigns against Crow and Sioux Indians?
 * ...that Austrian film company Wien-Film was given its official mission statement in 1938 by Joseph Goebbels?
 * ...that activist Terry Robbins inspired the name of the terrorist organization Weathermen with a Bob Dylan quote?
 * ...that a Ghostbusters video game is scheduled for late 2008, quarter of a century after the original film?
 * ...that painter and stage designer George Sheringham was one of the first recipients of the Royal Designers for Industry distinction?
 * ...that the earliest Portuguese description of Malaysia, Tomé Pires's Suma Oriental (completed in 1515), lay unpublished and presumed lost in an archive until 1944?
 * ...that tourism in Zimbabwe fell by seventy-five percent in 2000?
 * ...that, among the medieval cathedrals of England, Winchester Cathedral (pictured) is the longest medieval church in the world?
 * ...that Indologist Burton Stein was known for questioning the existence of the Chola Dynasty as an empire, referring to it as a "segmentary state"?
 * ...that the Federated Malay States and the Straits Settlements had a combined cricket team from 1906 to 1961?
 * ...that Pancha Carrasco became Costa Rica's first woman in the military by joining the defending forces at the Battle of Rivas rifle in hand and apron full of bullets?
 * ...that after World War II, the Soviets took nearly 100 tons of uranium oxide as reparations from a facility of the company Auergesellschaft, accelerating their development of the atomic bomb by a year?
 * ...that professor George E. Kimball gave a zero in physical chemistry to Isaac Asimov?
 * ...that Virgil Walter Ross animated Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck for decades under Tex Avery and Fritz Freleng and received the highest awards in his profession?
 * ...that flamingos and other birds display homosexual behavior sometimes forming committed same-sex relationships that can involve sex, traveling, living together and raising young together?
 * ...that the mythological sea creature Aspidochelone is so massive that it is said to have been mistaken for an island?
 * ...that more than 200 species of mammals (male kob pictured) display homosexual behavior including oral sex and genital stimulation?
 * ...that Angus Purden, regular presenter of the BBC's Cash in the Attic, was crowned Mr. Scotland as a teenager, and modelled for Giorgio Armani for three years in Milan?
 * ...that under the leadership of its Ministry of Defense, Ukraine became the first country in history to voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons?
 * ...that as his last words before succumbing to wounds caused by an assassination by political rivals, Arpiar Arpiarian, who is considered the founder of realism in modern Armenian literature, uttered the words "I am Armenian"?
 * ...that John Gouriet organised the "Operation Pony Express" in 1977, where 100,000 films from the strikebound Grunwick laboratory were posted across the United Kingdom, getting around the refusal of the local postal workers to handle them?
 * ...that after HMNZS Canterbury was decommissioned by the Royal New Zealand Navy, the frigate was sold to a trust for a symbolic NZ$1 and then scuttled in the Bay of Islands by a former crewmember?
 * ...that Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority founder Harriet Josephine Terry wrote the sorority's hymn, "Hail Alpha Kappa Alpha Dear"?