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HandWiki is the world's largest wiki-style encyclopedia dedicated to science, technology and computing. It allows you to create and edit articles as long as you have external citations and login account. In addition, this is a content management environment that can be used for collaborative editing of original scholarly content, such as books, manuals, monographs and tutorials.

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Navigational Aid
A navigational aid (navaid), also known as aid to navigation (ATON), is any sort of marker which aids the traveler in navigation, usually nautical or aviation travel. Common types of such aids include lighthouses, buoys, fog signals, and day beacons.
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  • 24 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Ayat Al-Akhras
Ayat al-Akhras (February 20, 1985 – March 29, 2002) was the third and youngest Palestinian female suicide bomber who, at age 18 (some sources report her age to be as young as 16), killed herself and two Israeli civilians on March 29, 2002 by detonating explosives belted to her body. The killings gained widespread international attention due to Ayat's age and gender and the fact that one of the victims was also a teenage girl. The killings led U.S. President George W. Bush to observe: “When an 18-year-old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up and in the process kills a 17-year-old Israeli girl, the future itself is dying; the future of the Palestinian people and the future of the Israeli people.”
  • 2.1K
  • 24 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Fiat G.55
The Fiat G.55 Centauro (Italian: "Centaur") was a single-engine single-seat World War II fighter aircraft used by the Regia Aeronautica and the A.N.R. (Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana) in 1943–1945. It was designed and built in Turin by Fiat. The Fiat G.55 was arguably the best type produced in Italy during World War II, (a subjective claim also frequently made for the Macchi C.205 Veltro as well as for the Reggiane Re.2005 Sagittario) but it did not enter production until 1943, when, after comparative tests against the Messerschmitt Bf 109G and the Focke-Wulf 190, the Luftwaffe itself regarded the Fiat G.55 as "the best Axis fighter". During its short operational service, mostly under the Repubblica Sociale Italiana insignia, after the 8 September 1943 armistice, this powerful, robust and fast aircraft proved itself to be an excellent interceptor at high altitude. In 1944, over Northern Italy, the Centauro clashed with British Supermarine Spitfire, P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt and P-38 Lightning, proving to be no easy adversary. Italian fighter pilots liked their Centauro but by the time the war ended, fewer than 300 had been built. By comparison, the Germans produced 35,000 Bf 109s.
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  • 24 Oct 2022
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Vestigiality
Vestigiality is the retention during the process of evolution of genetically determined structures or attributes that have lost some or all of the ancestral function in a given species. Assessment of the vestigiality must generally rely on comparison with homologous features in related species. The emergence of vestigiality occurs by normal evolutionary processes, typically by loss of function of a feature that is no longer subject to positive selection pressures when it loses its value in a changing environment. The feature may be selected against more urgently when its function becomes definitively harmful, but if the lack of the feature provides no advantage, and its presence provides no disadvantage, the feature may not be phased out by natural selection and persist across species. Examples of vestigial structures (also called degenerate, atrophied, or rudimentary organs) are the loss of functional wings in island-dwelling birds; the human vomeronasal organ; and the hindlimbs of the snake and whale. The human appendix is no longer considered vestigial.
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  • 24 Oct 2022
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Coppermine Expedition of 1819–22
The Coppermine Expedition of 1819–1822 had as its goal the exploration of the northern coast of Canada , which was accessed by way of the Coppermine River. The British expedition was organised by the Royal Navy as part of its attempt to discover and map the Northwest Passage. It was the first of three Arctic expeditions to be led by John Franklin, and also included George Back and Dr. John Richardson, both of whom would become notable Arctic explorers in their own right. The expedition was plagued by poor planning, bad luck and unreliable allies. The expected assistance from the local fur trading companies and native peoples was less forthcoming than expected, and the dysfunctional supply line, coupled with unusually harsh weather and the resulting absence of game, meant that the explorers were never far from starvation. Eventually the Arctic coast was reached, but barely 500 mi (800 km) had been explored before the exhaustion of the party's supplies and the onset of winter forced it to turn back. The expedition made a desperate retreat across uncharted territory in a state of starvation, often with nothing more than lichen to eat. Eleven of the twenty-strong party died amid accusations of murder and cannibalism before the survivors were rescued by people of the Yellowknives First Nation, who had previously given them up for dead. In the aftermath of the expedition, Franklin was much criticised by local fur traders for his haphazard planning and failure to adapt to the circumstances he faced, but in Britain he was received as a hero, and fêted for the courage he had shown in extreme adversity. The expedition captured the public imagination, and in reference to a desperate measure he took while starving, he became known as "the man who ate his boots".
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  • 24 Oct 2022
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Engraulinae
An anchovy is a small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water and some in South America are restricted to fresh water. The more than 140 species are placed in 17 genera; they are found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Anchovies are usually classified as oily fish.
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  • 24 Oct 2022
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Savoia-Marchetti SM.75
The Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 was an Italian passenger and military transport aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s. It was a low-wing, trimotor monoplane of mixed metal and wood construction with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It was the last of a line of transport aeroplanes that Alessandro Marchetti began building in the early 1930s. The SM.75 was fast, robust, capable of long-range flight and could carry up to 24 passengers for 1,000 miles.
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  • 24 Oct 2022
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Hat Puzzle
Hat puzzles are logic problems that date back to as early as 1961. Such hat puzzles, frequently contextualized as prisoners and hats puzzles, are induction puzzles (a kind of logic puzzle) that involve reasoning about the actions of other people, drawing in aspects of Game theory sometimes called the hierarchy of beliefs. There are many variations, but the central theme remains the same. A number of players are each wearing a hat, which may be of various specified colours. Players can see the colours of at least some other players' hats, but not that of their own. With highly restricted communication or none, some of the players must guess the colour of their hat. The problem is to find a strategy for the players to determine the colours of their hats based on the hats they see and what the other players do. In some versions, they compete to be the first to guess correctly; in others, they can work out a strategy beforehand to cooperate and maximize the probability of correct guesses. One variation received some new publicity as a result of Todd Ebert's 1998 Ph.D. thesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It is a strategy question about a cooperative game, which has connections to algebraic coding theory.
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  • 24 Oct 2022
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Queen Snake
The queen snake (Regina septemvittata) is a species of nonvenomous semiaquatic snake, a member of the subfamily Natricinae of the family Colubridae. The species is endemic to North America.
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  • 24 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Blading (Professional Wrestling)
In professional wrestling, blading is the practice of intentionally cutting oneself to provoke bleeding. It is also known as "juicing", "gigging", or "getting color". Similarly, a blade is an object used for blading and a bladejob is a specific act of blading. The act is usually done a good length into the match as the blood will mix with the flowing sweat to make it look like much more blood is flowing from the wound than there actually is. The preferred area for blading is usually the forehead, as scalp wounds bleed profusely and heal easily. Legitimate, unplanned bleeding which occurs outside the storyline is called "juicing the hard way".
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  • 24 Oct 2022
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