Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 October 18

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From today's featured article

An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier. Cores are drilled with hand augers (for shallow holes) or powered drills; they can reach depths of over two miles (three kilometres), and contain ice up to 800,000 years old. The physical properties of the ice and of material trapped in it can be used to reconstruct the climate over the age range of the core. The ratio of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes provides information about ancient temperatures, and the air trapped in tiny bubbles can indicate the level of atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide. Greenland ice cores contain layers of wind-blown dust that correlate with cold, dry periods in the past. Radioactive elements, either of natural origin or created by nuclear testing, can be used to date the layers of ice. Some volcanic events that were sufficiently powerful to send material around the globe have left a signature in many different cores that can be used to synchronize their time scales. Climate models can be constructed by piecing together all the available data. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Loggerhead Key

... that Loggerhead Key (pictured) was home to the Tortugas Laboratory, which performed some of the first research on Western Hemisphere mangroves and coral reefs?
... that mezzo-soprano Patricia Johnson appeared as Eboli at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and created the roles of a Nabokov Princess and a Henze Baroness?
... that the sea gastropod Coriocella nigra has an internal shell and four or five bosses on its body?
... that the workshop of August Volz supplied decorations for the Latvian National Opera, Latvian National Theatre, Latvian National Museum of Art, and Art Academy of Latvia?
... that California High-Speed Rail's proposed Pacheco Pass Tunnel is expected to become the longest rail tunnel in North America?
... that Heinrich Schütz published his Symphoniae sacrae I, a collection of 20 "eloquent, sensitive, and often sensuous" settings of biblical texts, in 1629 in Venice, where he studied with Monteverdi?
... that Selna Kaplan led the first clinical trials of artificial growth hormone in the United States?
... that the banded nemertean ribbon worm readily breaks into pieces, each of which can regenerate into a new individual within four weeks?

In the news

Sooronbay Jeenbekov

The first observation of a neutron star merger in gravitational waves as well as gamma-rays and visible light is announced.
Sooronbay Jeenbekov (pictured) is elected President of Kyrgyzstan in the first peaceful transfer of power after a full term in the country's history.
Twin bombings kill at least 320 people in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Flash floods and landslides from a tropical depression kill more than 50 people in Vietnam.
Wildfires in Northern California kill at least 40 people and destroy thousands of buildings and other structures.
Richard Thaler is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

On this day...

October 18: Feast day of Saint Luke; Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1991); Alaska Day (1867)

Replica of Venera 4

1081 – Byzantine–Norman wars: Robert Guiscard led an invasion of the Byzantine Empire, capturing Dyrrhachium in present-day Albania.
1561 – Sengoku period: The fourth battle of Kawanakajima, one of the most famous in Japanese history, was fought in present-day Nagano Prefecture.
1851 – Moby-Dick, a novel by American writer Herman Melville, was first published as The Whale in London.
1929 – In the Persons Case, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided that women were eligible to sit in the Canadian Senate.
1967 – The Soviet space probe Venera 4 (replica pictured) became the first spacecraft to perform direct in situ analysis of the environment of another planet (Venus).

Lady Mary Wroth (b. 1587) · Jacob Jordaens (d. 1678) · Maria Antonescu (d. 1964)

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Today's featured picture

Bulb Fields was the first garden painting by Vincent van Gogh. Completed in The Hague in 1883, this painting depicts rectangular plots of blue, yellow, pink, and red hyacinths. It is now held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Painting: Vincent van Gogh

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