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Topic Review
Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization
Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization ("IVC") is a debated topic and remains a matter of speculation. If the Indus script is ever deciphered, this may provide clearer evidence. The first excavators of the IVC were struck by the absence of obvious temples or other evidence of religion, and there remain no examples of buildings generally agreed by scholars to have had a religious function, although some suggestions of religious use have been made. The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley people have received considerable attention, especially from the view of identifying precursors to deities and religious practices of Indian religions that later developed in the area. However, due to the sparsity of evidence, which is open to varying interpretations, and the fact that the Indus script remains undeciphered, the conclusions are partly speculative and many are largely based on a retrospective view from a much later Hindu perspective. Geoffrey Samuel, writing in 2008, finds all attempts to make "positive assertions" about IVC religions as conjectural and intensely prone to personal biases — at the end of the day, scholars knew nothing about Indus Valley religions. An early and influential work in the area that set the trend for Hindu interpretations of archaeological evidence from the Harappan sites was that of John Marshall, who in 1931 identified the following as prominent features of the Indus religion: a Great Male God and a Mother Goddess; deification or veneration of animals and plants; symbolic representation of the phallus (linga) and vulva (yoni); and, use of baths and water in religious practice. Marshall's interpretations have been intensely critiqued, and most of his specific details have failed to stand the test of time. Yet, claims Asko Parpola, Marshall's conclusions have been generally accepted. Contemporary scholars (most significantly, Parpola) continue to probe the roles of the IVC in the formation of Hinduism; others remain ambivalent of these results.
  • 19.0K
  • 08 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Northwest Caucasian
Proto-Northwest Caucasian (sometimes abbreviated PNWC), also Proto-Adyghe-Abazgi or Proto-Adyghe-Abkhaz, is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Northwest Caucasian languages.
  • 656
  • 08 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Diet Coke and Mentos Eruption
A Diet Coke and Mentos eruption (also known as a soda geyser) is a reaction between the carbonated beverage Diet Coke and Mentos mints that causes the beverage to spray out of its container. The candies catalyze the release of gas from the beverage, which creates an eruption that pushes most of the liquid up and out of the bottle. Lee Marek and "Marek's Kid Scientists" were the first to publicly demonstrate the experiment on the Late Show with David Letterman in 1999. Steve Spangler's televised demonstration of the eruption in 2005 became popular on YouTube, launching a chain of several other Diet Coke and Mentos experiment viral videos.
  • 1.6K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Troll 2
Troll 2 is a 1990 horror film directed by Claudio Fragasso (under the pseudonym Drake Floyd) and starring Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey, Connie McFarland, Deborah Reed, and Jason Wright. Produced under the title Goblins and conceived as a horror film with elements of comedy, the American producers and distributors were skeptical about its chances to succeed, and decided to market it as a sequel to the 1986 horror film Troll. However, the two films have no connection, and this movie features no trolls. The plot concerns a family pursued by vegetarian goblins who seek to mutate them into plants so that they can eat them. Production was rife with difficulties, largely due to the language barrier between the Italian-speaking crew and English-speaking cast, and producer Joe D'Amato's approach to low-budget film making. The resulting film is considered by some as one of the worst movies ever made. In subsequent years, the film gained a cult following and garnered a large fanbase. Though generally viewed as a poorly made horror, the filmmakers stated that it was "always intended to be a comic film". In 2009, Stephenson, the child star of the film, directed a critically acclaimed documentary about its production and subsequent popularity, humorously titled Best Worst Movie.
  • 605
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Ambidextrous Organization
Organizational ambidexterity refers to an organization's ability to be efficient in its management of today's business and also adaptable for coping with tomorrow's changing demand. Just as being ambidextrous means being able to use both the left and right hand equally, organizational ambidexterity requires the organizations to use both exploration and exploitation techniques to be successful.
  • 602
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Wenedyk
Wenedyk is a naturalistic constructed language, created by the Dutch translator Jan van Steenbergen (who also co-created the international auxiliary language Interslavic). It is used in the fictional Republic of the Two Crowns (based on the Republic of Two Nations), in the alternate timeline of Ill Bethisad. Officially, Wenedyk is a descendant of Vulgar Latin with a strong Slavic admixture, based on the premise that the Roman Empire incorporated the ancestors of the Poles in their territory. Less officially, it tries to show what Polish would have looked like if it had been a Romance instead of a Slavic language. On the Internet, it is well-recognized as an example of the altlang genre, much like Brithenig and Breathanach. The idea for the language was inspired by such languages as Brithenig and Breathanach, languages that bear a similar relationship to the Celtic languages as Wenedyk does to Polish. The language itself is based entirely on (Vulgar) Latin and Polish: all phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes that made Polish develop from Common Slavic are applied to Vulgar Latin. As a result, vocabulary and morphology are predominantly Romance in nature, whereas phonology, orthography and syntax are essentially the same as in Polish. Wenedyk uses the modern standard Polish orthography, including (for instance) ⟨w⟩ for /v/ and ⟨ł⟩ for /w/. Wenedyk plays a role in the alternate history of Ill Bethisad, where it is one of the official languages of the Republic of the Two Crowns. In 2005 Wenedyk underwent a major revision due to a better understanding of Latin and Slavic sound and grammar changes. In the process, the author was assisted by the Polish linguist Grzegorz Jagodziński. The dictionary on the WWW page linked below contains over 4000 entries. The language has acquired some media attention in Poland, including a few online news articles and an article in the monthly Wiedza i Życie ("Knowledge and Life").
  • 426
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Udvada Atash Behram
The Udvada Atash Behram, also known as the Iran Shah, "King of Iran", is a sacred fire housed in a temple in Udvada, Gujarat on the west coast of India. It is the first of the eight fire temples (holy place of worship) of the Zoroastrian religion in the country. The Atash Bahram, meaning "Victorious Fire", is the oldest fire temples in India, dated to the eight century, and represents the historical cultural and religious links with Iran. The current temple housing the sacred fire was built in 1742 by Motlibai Wadia from Bombay. The temple structure, built spaciously, is well decorated and contains the Dasturji Koyaji Mirza hall and a museum. The main hall of the temple is accessed through a two-stage staircase. The temple attracts Zoroastrian pilgrims from all parts of India, Pakistan and from around the world.
  • 786
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Berber
Proto-Berber or Proto-Libyan is the reconstructed proto-language from which the modern Berber languages stem. Proto-Berber was an Afroasiatic language, and as such, its descendant Berber languages are cousins to the Egyptian language, Cushitic languages, Semitic languages, Chadic languages, and the Omotic languages.
  • 1.0K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
The First Year Experience Program
The First-Year Experience (FYE) (also known as the Freshman-Year Experience or the Freshman Seminar Program) is a program at many United States colleges and universities designed to help students prepare for the transition from high school to college. FYE programs often foster the participation of students in co-curricular events such as common reads, concerts, art exhibits, and guest lectures. Depending on the school, the course can last anywhere from two weeks to a full school year. Some larger universities, such as the University at Albany, SUNY, through their Project Renaissance Program,create a "small college" feel by allowing freshmen to do their first-year courses in one section of the university. While the origins of the program remain unclear, many people attribute the start of the First-Year Seminar to the University of South Carolina, which houses the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and holds a series of workshops for colleges and universities to better their own first-year programs.
  • 321
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Face Inversion Effect
The face inversion effect is a phenomenon where identifying inverted (upside-down) faces compared to upright faces is much more difficult than doing the same for non-facial objects. A typical study examining the face inversion effect would have images of the inverted and upright object presented to participants and time how long it takes them to recognise that object as what it actually is (i.e. a picture of a face as a face). The face inversion effect occurs when, compared to other objects, it takes a disproportionately longer time to recognise faces when they are inverted as opposed to upright. Faces are normally processed in the special face-selective regions of the brain, such as the fusiform face area. However, processing inverted faces involves both face-selective regions and the scene and object recognition regions of the parahippocampal place area and lateral occipital cortex. There seems to be something different about inverted faces that requires them to also involve these scene and object processing mechanisms. The most supported explanation for why faces take longer to recognise when they are inverted is the configural information hypothesis. The configural information hypothesis states that faces are processed with the use of configural information to form a holistic (whole) representation of a face. Objects, however, are not processed in this configural way. Instead, they are processed featurally (in parts). Inverting a face disrupts configural processing, forcing it to instead be processed featurally like other objects. This causes a delay since it takes longer to form a representation of a face with only local information.
  • 338
  • 07 Nov 2022
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