Humour

Humour also spelled humor is the capability or quality of people, objects, or situation to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. The terms encompass a form of entertainment or human communication which evokes such feelings, or which makes people laugh or feel happy. The origin of the term derives from the humoural medicine of the ancient Greeks, which stated that a mix of fluids known as humours prohibited human health and emotion.

A sense of humour is the ability to knowledge humour, a quality which all people share, although the extent to which an individual will personally find impressive humorous depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including, but not limited to geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education and context. For example, young children of any background particularly favour slapstick, while satire tends to appeal to more mature audiences.

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Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Vallabhbhai Patel was a political and social leader of India who played a major role in the country's struggle for independence and guided its integration into a united, independent nation. In India and across the world, he is often addressed as Sardar, which stands for Chief in many languages of India.

Raised in the countryside of Gujarat, Vallabhbhai Patel was a self-educated and successful Gujarati lawyer, when he was inspired by the work and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Patel organised the peasants of Kheda, Borsad, and Bardoli in Gujarat in non-violent civil disobedience against oppressive policies imposed by the British Raj; in this role, he became one of the most influential leaders in Gujarat. He rose to the leadership of the Indian National Congress and was at the forefront of rebellions and political events, organising the party for elections in 1934 and 1937, and promoting the Quit India movement.

As the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, Patel organised relief for refugees in Punjab and Delhi, and led efforts to restore peace across the nation. Patel took charge of the task to forge a united India from the 565 semi-autonomous princely states and British-era colonial provinces.

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Mercury

Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, orbiting at an average distance of about 58 million kilometers. Because Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, it moves the faster than any other planet in our solar system travelling at an average speed of nearly 48kms. per second and completing an orbit in just under 88 days. Mercury is very small and rocky. Most of the surface has been heavily cratered by the impact of meteorites, although there are also smooth, sparsely cratered plains.

The Caloris Basin is the largest crater, measuring about 1300kms. across. It is thought to have been formed when an asteroid sized rock hit the planet, and is surrounded by concentric rings of mountains thrown up by the impact. The surface also has many ridges that are thought to have been formed when the hot core of the young planet cooled and shrank about four billion years ago, buckling the planet's surface in the process. The planet rotates about its axis very slowly, taking nearly 59 Earth days to complete one rotation. As a result, a solar day on mercury is about 176 Earth days- twice as long as the 88- day Mercurian year.

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Sports competition

While some sports, such as fishing, have been viewed as primarily recreational, most sports are considered competitive. The greater part involve competition between two or more persons. For example, in a game of basketball, two teams compete against one another to determine who can score the most points. While there is no set reward for the winning team, many players gain an inner sense of pride. In addition, extrinsic rewards may also be given. Athletes, besides competing against other humans, also compete against nature in sports such as whitewater kayaking or mountain hiking, where the goal is to reach a destination, with only natural barriers impeding the process.

While professional sports have been usually viewed as intense and extremely competitive, recreational sports, which are often less intense, are considered a healthy option for the competitive urges in humans. Sport provides a relatively safe venue for converting unbridled competition into safe competition, because sports competition is restrained. Competitive sports are governed by codified rules agreed upon by the participants. Violating these rules is considered to be unfair competition.

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Extra-planetary weather

Weather is not partial to just planetary bodies, however. A star's corona is constantly being lost to space, creating what is essentially a very thin atmosphere throughout the solar system, known as the solar wind.

Inconsistencies in this wind and larger events on the surface of the star, such as Coronal Mass Ejections, form a system that has features analogous to conventional weather systems i.e. pressure and wind, and though not true weather, is usually known as space weather. The activity of this system can affect planetary atmospheres and occasionally surfaces. The interface of the solar wind with the terrestrial atmosphere can produce spectacular aurorae, but can play havoc with electrically sensitive systems such as electricity grids and radio signals.

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Pitch

In music, pitch is the psychological associate of the fundamental frequency of a note. The note an above middle C played on any instrument is perceived to be of the same pitch as a pure tone of 440 Hz, but does not essentially contain a partial having that frequency. Furthermore, a slight change in frequency need not lead to a perceived change in pitch, but a change in pitch implies a change in frequency. In fact, the just perceptible difference is about five cents, but varies over the range of hearing and is more precise when the two pitches are played at the same time. Like other human stimuli, the perception of pitch also can be explained by the Weber-Fechner law.

Pitch also depends on the amplitude of the sound, especially at low frequencies. For instance, a low bass note will sound lower in pitch if it is louder. Like other senses, the comparative perception of pitch can be fooled, resulting in "audio illusions". There are several of these, such as the tritone paradox, but most especially the Shepard scale, where a continuous or discrete sequence of specially formed tones can be made to sound as if the sequence continues ascending or descending forever.

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Heat wave

A heat wave is a prolonged period of extremely hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity. There is no universal definition of a heat wave the term is relative to the usual weather in the area. Temperatures that people from a hotter climate believe normal can be termed a heat wave in a cooler area if they are outside the normal climate pattern for that area. The term is applied both to routine weather variation and to extraordinary spells of heat which may occur only once a century. Severe heat waves have caused catastrophic crop failures, thousands of deaths from hyperthermia, and widespread power outages due to increased use of air conditioning.

Heat waves often occur for the period of the Dog Days of summer; indeed the French term canicule, denoting the general phenomenon of a heat wave, derives from the Italian canicula applied to the star Sirius, also known as the "Dog Star."

Some regions of the globe are more susceptible to heat waves than others, such as Mediterranean-type climates with a summer dry spell which becomes much hotter than usual during certain years

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Solar System

The Solar System, is the stellar system comprising the Sun and the retinue of celestial objects gravitationally bound to it: the eight planets, their 162 known moons, three currently identified dwarf planets and their four known moons, and thousands of small bodies. This last category includes asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and interplanetary dust.

The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun ; a main sequence G2 star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. Because of its large mass, the Sun has an interior density high enough to sustain nuclear fusion, releasing enormous amounts of energy, most of which is radiated into space in the form of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light. The Sun's two largest orbiting bodies, Jupiter and Saturn, account for more than 90% of the system's remaining mass.

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Unusual Twinnings

There are some patterns of twinning that are exceedingly rare: while they have been reported to happen, they are so unusual that most obstetricians or midwives may go their entire careers without encountering a single case.Among fraternal twins, in rare cases, the eggs are fertilized at different times with two or more acts of sexual intercourse, either within one menstrual cycle or, even more rarely, later on in the pregnancy . This can lead to the possibility of a woman carrying fraternal twins with different fathers . This phenomenon is known as heteropaternal superfecundation. One 1992 study estimates that the frequency of heteropaternal superfecundation among dizygotic twins whose parents were involved in paternity suits was approximately 2.4%; see the references section, below, for more details.

Among monozygotic twins, in extremely rare cases, twins have been born with opposite sexes . The probability of this is so vanishingly small that multiples having different genders is universally accepted as a sound basis for a clinical determination that in utero multiples are not monozygotic. When monozygotic twins are born with different genders it is because of chromosomal birth defects. In this case, although the twins did come from the same egg, it is incorrect to refer to them as genetically identical, since they have different karyotypes.

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Alternative education

Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, describes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than traditional publicly- or privately-run schools. These approaches can be applied to all students of all ages, from infancy to adulthood, and all levels of education.

Educational alternatives often are the result of education reform and are rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different from those of mainstream compulsory education. While some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and students somehow dissatisfied with certain aspects of mainstream education.

Educational alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but often emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between students and teachers, and a sense of community.

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