The Old Plantation is an American folk art watercolor likely painted in the late 18th century on a South Carolina plantation. It is notable for its early date, its credible, non-stereotypical depiction of slaves on the North American mainland, and the fact that the slaves are shown pursuing their own interests. The artist has been identified as South Carolina slaveholder John Rose, and the painting may depict his plantation in what is now Beaufort County. Description and interpretation The painting depicts African American slaves between two small outbuildings of a plantation sited on a broad river. The Old Plantation is the only known painting of its era that depicts African Americans by themselves, concerned only with each other, though its central activity remains obscure. Some writers have speculated that the painting depicts a marriage ceremony, with the attendant tradition of jumping the broom. However, scholars have suggested that the subjects are performing a secular dance: western African dance patterns traditionally include sticks and a variety of body positions. The headdresses pictured...

Ash Wednesday is a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and marks the first day of Lent (the six weeks of penitence before Easter).Ash Wednesday is observed by Catholics, Lutherans, Moravians, Anglicans, Methodists, Nazarenes, as well as by some churches in the Reformed tradition (including certain Congregationalist, Continental Reformed, and Presbyterian churches).Ash Wednesday is traditionally observed with fasting and abstinence from meat in a number of Christian denominations. As it is the first day of Lent, many Christians begin Ash Wednesday by marking a Lenten calendar, praying a Lenten daily devotional, and making a Lenten sacrifice that they will not partake of until the arrival of Eastertide.Many Christians attend special Ash Wednesday church services, at which churchgoers receive ash on their foreheads. Ash Wednesday derives its name from this practice, which is accompanied by the words, "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" or the dictum "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The ashes are prepared by burning palm leaves from...

The Old Plantation is an American folk art watercolor likely painted in the late 18th century on a South Carolina plantation. It is notable for its early date, its credible, non-stereotypical depiction of slaves on the North American mainland, and the fact that the slaves are shown pursuing their own interests. The artist has been identified as South Carolina slaveholder John Rose, and the painting may depict his plantation in what is now Beaufort County. Description and interpretation The painting depicts African American slaves between two small outbuildings of a plantation sited on a broad river. The Old Plantation is the only known painting of its era that depicts African Americans by themselves, concerned only with each other, though its central activity remains obscure. Some writers have speculated that the painting depicts a marriage ceremony, with the attendant tradition of jumping the broom. However, scholars have suggested that the subjects are performing a secular dance: western African dance patterns traditionally include sticks and a variety of body positions. The headdresses pictured...

The atomic number or nuclear charge number (symbol Z) of a chemical element is the charge number of an atomic nucleus. For ordinary nuclei, this is equal to the proton number (np) or the number of protons found in the nucleus of every atom of that element. The atomic number can be used to uniquely identify ordinary chemical elements. In an ordinary uncharged atom, the atomic number is also equal to the number of electrons. For an ordinary atom, the sum of the atomic number Z and the neutron number N gives the atom's atomic mass number A. Since protons and neutrons have approximately the same mass (and the mass of the electrons is negligible for many purposes) and the mass defect of the nucleon binding is always small compared to the nucleon mass, the atomic mass of any atom, when expressed in unified atomic mass units (making a quantity called the "relative isotopic mass"), is within 1% of the whole number A. Atoms with the same atomic number but different neutron numbers, and hence different mass numbers, are known as isotopes. A little more than three-quarters...

In botany, secondary growth is the growth that results from cell division in the cambia or lateral meristems and that causes the stems and roots to thicken, while primary growth is growth that occurs as a result of cell division at the tips of stems and roots, causing them to elongate, and gives rise to primary tissue. Secondary growth occurs in most seed plants, but monocots usually lack secondary growth. If they do have secondary growth, it differs from the typical pattern of other seed plants. The formation of secondary vascular tissues from the cambium is a characteristic feature of dicotyledons and gymnosperms. In certain monocots, the vascular tissues are also increased after the primary growth is completed but the cambium of these plants is of a different nature. In the living pteridophytes this feature is extremely rare, only occurring in Isoetes. Lateral meristems In many vascular plants, secondary growth is the result of the activity of the two lateral meristems, the cork cambium and vascular cambium. Arising from lateral meristems, secondary growth increases the width of the plant...

In the arts and in literature, the term avant-garde (advance guard and vanguard) identifies a genre of art, an experimental work of art, and the experimental artist who created the work of art, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic Establishment of the time. The military metaphor of an advance guard identifies the artists and writers whose innovations in style, form, and subject-matter challenge the artistic and aesthetic validity of the established forms of art and the literary traditions of their time; thus how the artists who created the anti-novel and Surrealism were ahead of their times.As a stratum of the intelligentsia of a society, avant-garde artists promote progressive and radical politics and advocate for societal reform with and through works of art. In the essay "The Artist, the Scientist, and the Industrialist" (1825) Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues’s political usage of vanguard identified the moral obligation of artists to "serve as [the] avant-garde" of the people, because "the power of the arts is, indeed, the most immediate and...

A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope design was originally used in spyglasses and astronomical telescopes but is also used for long-focus camera lenses. Although large refracting telescopes were very popular in the second half of the 19th century, for most research purposes, the refracting telescope has been superseded by the reflecting telescope, which allows larger apertures. A refractor's magnification is calculated by dividing the focal length of the objective lens by that of the eyepiece.Refracting telescopes typically have a lens at the front, then a long tube, then an eyepiece or instrumentation at the rear, where the telescope view comes to focus. Originally, telescopes had an objective of one element, but a century later, two and even three element lenses were made. Refracting telescope is a technology that has often been applied to other optical devices, such as binoculars and zoom lenses/telephoto lens/long-focus lens. ...

Line is a freeware app for instant communications on electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet computers and personal computers. Line users exchange: texts, images, video and audio and conduct free VoIP conversations and video conferences. In addition, Line is a platform providing various services including: digital wallet as Line Pay, news stream as LINE Today, video on demand as Line TV and digital comic distribution as Line Manga and Line Webtoon. The service is operated by Line Corporation, a Tokyo-based subsidiary of Z Holdings. Line was launched in Japan in June 2011 by NHN Japan, a subsidiary of Naver Corporation. Because it was tailored to Japanese consumers' tastes and offered free smartphone calls as well as texting, with the help of a massive marketing campaign it quickly outpaced its existing rival KakaoTalk for the Japanese market. It reached 100 million users within 18 months and 200 million users six months later. Line became Japan's largest social network in 2013, with more than 300 million users. By February 2015 it had 600 million users.In March 2021, SoftBank Group affiliate and Yahoo! Japan operator Z Holdings...

Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or 32 °F (0 °C; 273 K) Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color. In the Solar System, ice is abundant and occurs naturally from as close to the Sun as Mercury to as far away as the Oort cloud objects. Beyond the Solar System, it occurs as interstellar ice. It is abundant on Earth's surface – particularly in the polar regions and above the snow line – and, as a common form of precipitation and deposition, plays a key role in Earth's water cycle and climate. It falls as snowflakes and hail or occurs as frost, icicles or ice spikes and aggregates from snow as glaciers and ice sheets. Ice exhibits at least eighteen phases (packing geometries), depending on temperature and pressure. When water is cooled rapidly (quenching), up to three types of amorphous ice can form depending on its history of pressure and temperature. When cooled slowly, correlated proton tunneling occurs below ...

The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provides geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. It does not require the user to transmit any data, and operates independently of any telephonic or Internet reception, though these technologies can enhance the usefulness of the GPS positioning information. It provides critical positioning capabilities to military, civil, and commercial users around the world. Although the United States government created, controls and maintains the GPS system, it is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.The GPS project was started by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1973. The first prototype spacecraft was launched in 1978 and the full constellation of 24 satellites became operational...