A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of stock characters, covering men and women of various ages, social classes and demeanors. They are archetypal characters distinguished by their simplification and flatness. As a result, they tend to be easy targets for parody and to be criticized as clichés. The presence of a particular array of stock characters is a key component of many genres, and they often help to identify a genre or subgenre. For example, a story with a knight-errant and a witch is probably a fairy tale or fantasy. There are several purposes to using stock characters. Stock characters are a time- and effort-saving shortcut for story creators, as authors can populate their tale with existing well-known character types. Another benefit is that stock characters help to move the story along more efficiently, by allowing the audience to already understand the character and their motivations. Academic analysis ...

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare c. 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular and is widely performed. Characters Plot The play consists of five interconnecting plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta, which are set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon. Act 1 Scene 1 The play opens with Theseus and Hyppolyta who...

Luca Ghini (Casalfiumanese, 1490 – Bologna, 4 May 1556) was an Italian physician and botanist, notable as the creator of the first recorded herbarium, as well as the first botanical garden in Europe. Biography Ghini was born in Casalfiumanese, son of a notary, and studied medicine at the University of Bologna. By 1527 he was lecturing there on medicinal plants, and eventually became a professor. He moved to Pisa in 1544, while maintaining his home in Bologna. He created the first herbarium (hortus siccus) in that year, drying plants while pressing them between pieces of paper, then gluing them to cardboard. None of his herbaria survive although the one by his student Gherardo Cibo made around 1532 survives. 1544 also saw the establishment of a garden for live plants, which became known as the Orto botanico di Pisa. Ghini published no significant botanical work of his own, but was noted as a teacher many of whose students went on to significant careers, including Cesalpino (his successor as the director of the botanical garden) and Pietro Andrea Mattioli, the latter of which he helped by travelling around the...

The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of a duck, created by Jacques de Vaucanson and unveiled on 30 May 1739 in France. The mechanical duck appeared to have the ability to eat kernels of grain, and to metabolize and defecate them. While the duck did not actually have the ability to do this—the food was collected in one inner container, and the pre-stored feces were "produced" from a second, so that no actual digestion took place—Vaucanson hoped that a truly digesting automaton could one day be designed. Voltaire wrote in 1741 that "sans la voix de la le Maure, & le canard de Vaucanson, vous n'auriez rien qui fit ressouvenir de la gloire de la France." ('Without the voice of le Maure and Vaucanson's duck, you would have nothing to remind you of the glory of France.')The Duck is thought to have been destroyed in a fire at a museum in 1879. Operation The Duck was the size of a living duck, and was cased in gold-plated copper. As well as quacking and muddling water with its bill...

The Martin Ridge Cave System is a large cave near Mammoth Cave, in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The system, composed of the interconnected Whigpistle, Martin Ridge, and Jackpot Caves, has been mapped to over 55 kilometers (34 mi), and is currently the United States' thirteenth-longest cave. Discovery The original entrance to the system, Whigpistle Cave, was discovered by Rick Schwartz in 1976. Mapping was initiated by the National Park Service under the supervision of park hydrologist Jim Quinlan in an effort to better understand the hydrology of Mammoth Cave's watershed. Significance Surveyed so far to over 55 kilometers (34 mi), the Martin Ridge Cave System is ranked as third-longest in Kentucky, 11th-longest in the United States, and 47th-longest in the world. The cave also contains what is likely the largest cave chamber in Kentucky, the Big Womb. The Big Womb measures 240 meters (790 feet) long, 40 meters (130 feet) wide, and 13 meters (43 feet) high. The cave possesses an intimate hydrologic connection with nearby Mammoth Cave. Groundwater dye tracing has shown that water flowing...

Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula C2H6O. Its formula can be also written as CH3−CH2−OH or C2H5OH (an ethyl group linked to a hydroxyl group). Ethanol is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid with a characteristic wine-like odor and pungent taste. It is a psychoactive recreational drug, and the active ingredient in alcoholic drinks. Ethanol is naturally produced by the fermentation process of sugars by yeasts or via petrochemical processes such as ethylene hydration...

A treasure binding or jewelled bookbinding is a luxurious book cover using metalwork in gold or silver, jewels, or ivory, perhaps in addition to more usual bookbinding material for book-covers such as leather, velvet, or other cloth. The actual bookbinding technique is the same as for other medieval books, with the folios, normally of vellum, stitched together and bound to wooden cover boards. The metal furnishings of the treasure binding are then fixed, normally by tacks, onto these boards. Treasure bindings appear to have existed from at least Late Antiquity, though there are no surviving examples from so early, and Early Medieval examples are very rare. They were less used by the end of the Middle Ages, but a few continued to be produced in the West even up to the present day, and many more in areas where Eastern Orthodoxy predominated. The bindings were mainly used on grand illuminated manuscripts, especially gospel books designed for the altar and use in church services, rather than study in the library.The vast majority of these bookbindings were later destroyed as their valuable gold and jewels were removed by looters, or the owners when in need of...

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is an American professional wrestling promotion based in Jacksonville, Florida. It is considered the second largest wrestling promotion in the United States behind WWE. AEW is owned by Shahid Khan and his son Tony, who founded the company in 2019; in-ring performers Matt & Nick Jackson and Kenny Omega also serve as company executives. Its headquarters are located at TIAA Bank Field, the home stadium of the National Football League's Jacksonville Jaguars, a team also owned by Shahid Khan.Since October 2, 2019, AEW has produced a two-hour weekly television show, Dynamite, which airs live, with some exceptions. The show originally aired on TNT until December 2021; it moved to TNT's sister channel, TBS, on January 5, 2022. The company also has one other weekly television show, Rampage, which is a one-hour program that has aired on TNT since August 13, 2021. Additionally, AEW has two weekly YouTube-exclusive shows: Dark and Dark: Elevation. CBS Sports described AEW as "the first company with major financial backing to take a swing at beginning to compete with WWE on a major...

Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translated scholastic Judeo-Islamic philosophies, and thereby "rediscovered" the collected works of Aristotle. Endeavoring to harmonize his metaphysics and its account of a prime mover with the Latin Catholic dogmatic trinitarian theology, these monastic schools became the basis of the earliest European medieval universities, contributing to the development of modern science; scholasticism dominated education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. The rise of scholasticism was closely associated with these schools that flourished in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and England.Scholasticism is a method of learning more than a philosophy or a theology, since it places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference and to resolve contradictions. Scholastic thought is also known for rigorous conceptual analysis...

The Hoba ( HOH-bə) meteorite, short for Hoba West, is a meteorite that lies on the farm of the same name, not far from Grootfontein, in the Otjozondjupa Region of Namibia. It has been uncovered, but because of its large mass, has never been moved from where it fell. The main mass is estimated at more than 60 tonnes. It is the largest known intact meteorite (as a single piece) and about twice as massive as the largest fragment of either the Cape York meteorite's 31-tonne Ahnighito kept in Manhattan or the Campo del Cielo's 31-tonne Gancedo in Argentina. It is also the most massive naturally occurring piece of iron (actually ferronickel) known on Earth's surface. The name "Hoba" comes from a Khoekhoegowab word meaning "gift". Following donation to the government in 1987, a visitor centre was constructed with a circular stone access and seating area. Impact The Hoba meteorite impact is thought to have occurred less than 80,000 years ago. It is inferred that the Earth's atmosphere slowed the object in such a way that it impacted the surface at terminal velocity...