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Episode 4: From Trilobites to Therapsids

Image credit: Evan Howard, under CC BY 2.0. (cropped)

The following is the transcript for the fourth episode of On the River of History.

For a link to the actual podcast, go here. (Beginning with Part 1)

Part 1

Greetings everyone and welcome to episode 4 of On the River of History. I’m your host, Joan Turmelle, historian in residence.

The history of life on Earth is punctuated by several key themes. Throughout these next three episodes, I will be explaining the events that shaped the age of visible life, the Phanerozoic Eon. This time spans 541 million years, all the way to the present day, so this is the Eon to which we are currently in. You will notice that the evolution of living organisms is often regulated by the recurring fluctuations of a mostly oxygenated atmosphere and a mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere. You’ll also see that, despite the sheer horrors of mass extinction events, they are critical in shaping biodiversity. And, perhaps most crucial of all, the development of new features among groups of organisms is mostly a process of reshaping and recycling old things. In evolution by natural selection, you will never see a new trait forming out of nothing. Nearly always, new traits are developed in specific situations and only later find new uses as the environment changes.

The first era of the Phanerozoic Eon is the Paleozoic, or the age of ancient life. It lasted from the beginning of the Phanerozoic 541 million years ago and ends 251.9 million years ago. It was during this time that grand marine ecosystems developed and spread all across the globe, and living things spread out onto the land and made a home for themselves there.

The Paleozoic starts with the Cambrian Period (541 to 485.4 million years ago). Following a brief period when the fragments of Rodinia collided to form a new supercontinent called Pannotia, which itself split apart some 573 million years ago, the landmasses of the Earth were mostly collected into four continents. The largest, towards the south pole, was Gondwana. An expansive and long-lived continent, Gondwana includes regions that will eventually become Africa, South America, Australia, India, Madagascar, and Antarctica. Moving northwards from the south pole is Baltica, which includes most of Europe. Flanking Baltica is Siberia and Laurentia (made up of mostly North America). Two great oceans encompassed the continents, with the Iapetus Ocean separating Laurentia from Gondwana and the Panthalassic Ocean making up most of the northern hemisphere. Bordering the continents were an abundance of shallow seas, which acted as a cradle for the newly evolved animals.

As the Ediacaran faunas slipped away into obscurity, the descendants of the first animals diverged into two major groups based upon their mode of embryonic development. There is a process called gastrulation, where the growing bundle of cells collapses inwards on one side of its body and becomes the precursor to the gut. For most of the animals on one lineage, the protostomes, the opening to the gut became the mouth, and the exit-hole (the anus) opened later. For the members of the other animal lineage, the deuterostomes, the opening to the gut became the anus first, and the mouth came last. This seemingly trivial observation underpins most of the animal kingdom, and by the end of the Proterozoic Eon most of the major animal lineages had evolved.

The biggest key trait for the animals of the Cambrian was the development of hard skeletal parts on their bodies. Prior to these adaptations, most animals were soft-bodied and resembled worms. Around the beginning of the period, some lineages began to incorporate minerals like calcium and silica onto their bodies. This biomineralization is still poorly understood but has been hypothesized as tying to dietary needs. Some of the oldest fossils of hard-parts belong to the teeth of early worms like Protohertzina, that could have used their new adaptations to better grab prey items. In response, some organisms, like the early mollusks, developed hardened shells to protect themselves. One lineage of animals used calcium carbonate to stiffen their bodies and support themselves on the seafloor. Possibly related to sponges, the archaeocyathids formed symbiotic relationships with algae and bacteria that bound their cup-like bodies together, becoming the first reef-building organisms. As later animals, like true sponges and the ancestors of corals, refined their abilities to make hard-parts, they soon overran the archaeocyathids and drove the entire group into extinction.

As more and more lineages evolved hard internal and external skeletons, and the process became increasingly easier due to chemical changes in the oceans, animal diversity peaked in a grandiose display of unique and fascinating species 535 million years ago. This was the Cambrian Explosion, an event marked in the fossil record as the first time that organisms could really leave well-preserved fossils, as shells and skeletons tended to preserve better than soft-parts. That being said, there have been some spectacular fossils found in Cambrian deposits that have managed to preserve more easily decayable structures, like tentacles, internal organs, even skin pigmentation. These types of fossils seem to have formed through a rapid layering of clays that prevented the bodies of the different organisms from breaking down. Two sites stand out for their deposits, the Maotianshan shales of Yunnan, China, and the younger Burgess Shale of British Colombia, Canada.

With most of today’s animal lineages already established at the beginning of the Cambrian Explosion, much of their evolution during this time went towards the development of their primary modes of life.

Mollusks are among the most abundant animals in the oceans, rivers, and lakes of the world, but their evolution (like that of all major animal groups) began in the warm, saltwater seas off the coasts of the continents. The shells of mollusks serve as defensive structures that protect their vital organs from predators, and they themselves feed with a hardened and barbed tongue called a radula that scrapes edible materials from the surfaces of rocks. Cambrian mollusks came in a variety of forms, including the three majors groups: the valve-shelled bivalves (including clams, mussels, and oysters), the mostly coiled-shelled gastropods (snails and slugs), and the cephalopods (squids and octopodes) which gradually lost their shells.

Distantly related to mollusks are brachiopods. You’re probably not familiar with them, but during the Paleozoic Era they were one of the most common animal groups in the oceans. They look like clams but are actually very distinct in their anatomy. The valve-like shells of brachiopods cover filamented-tentacles that collect food particles from the water, and the shell is opened and closed by special muscles. Clams, like all bivalve mollusks, have a ligament that controls the movement of their hinged-shells, and they’re free-swimming organisms: brachiopods attach themselves to seafloor sediments by a long, flexible stalk.

Though well-adapted to their environment, mollusks and brachiopods were outnumbered by the arthropods, today the largest group of animals in the world. Ancestral arthropods used minerals to strengthen their entire bodies and developed an external skeleton or exoskeleton that preserved their internal organs. Unique for most animal groups was the evolution of jointed limbs, which could be adapted to a variety of different environments and lifestyles. Living arthropods include insects, arachnids, crabs, shrimp, and millipedes: some 80% of all animals. Who could guess that an exoskeleton and jointed limbs would prove to be such a successful adaptation?

The road to the arthropods was paved by many strange experiments in evolution, and the animals that underwent these changes belong to a larger group called Panarthropoda (named because it includes arthropods as well as their relatives). Genetic evidence and fossil remains show the earliest panarthropods as worm-like creatures, with stubby limbs and soft skins that probably walked along the seafloor or gripped onto sponges, like squirrels and monkeys in the trees. Today there are a few living descendants from these early groups, called velvet worms. Their soft skins leave them vulnerable to the elements, so they only survive in moist, tropical rainforests. One particularly curious member was Hallucigenia, famous among paleontologists because it was originally interpreted as a many-stalked animal that used rows of tentacles to grab food from the water. Later studies discovered that these researchers had accidentally been viewing the animal upside-down! It was an early panarthropod, protected from predators by a row of spines that grew along its back. The “tentacles” were actually its limbs.

Later panarthropods continued to strengthen their bodies with minerals and some adapted their limbs into paddles, allowing them to swim among the sponge reefs of the Cambrian oceans. They developed two appendages at the undersides of their heads that served as sensory organs and a few toughened those organs with hard teeth. One bizarre member of this group was Opabinia, looking like some Lovecraftian beast, shrunk down to a measly 2 and a half inches. It sported five eye-stalks and had one long flexible structure that ended in a little tooth-lined clasping grip, which it used to snag food and bring it towards its mouth (kind of like an elephant).

But the group that really dominated the Cambrian was the anomalocarids, which took up a wide range of niches. Niches are like occupations that organisms hold: the roles they play in different ecosystems. For example: a tiger holds the niche of apex predator in its habitat - nothing preys on it, but it alone sits at the top of the food web. Some anomalocarids may have filled the niche of apex ocean predator. There is some possible evidence that these panarthropods used their frilled appendages to grab soft-bodied prey and direct it towards a circular mouth, lined with teeth-like projections. But many members of the group were filter-feeders, with their appendages lined with long bristles for collecting food particles, like the baleen whales of today. Though they were the largest animals in the Cambrian, anomalocarids appear to have mostly died off by the end of this period, with evidence that a few species clung on for another 100 million years before going extinct.

Proper arthropods fully divided their bodies into segments, each sporting its own pair of jointed limbs. These animals divided into two major groups: mandibulates, with paired antennae and chewing mouth parts, and chelicerates, lacking antennae and having shredding mouth parts. Mandibulates include insects, crustaceans, and myriapods (millipedes and centipedes); chelicerates include arachnids and horseshoe crabs.

The highlights of the Cambrian Explosion (and really the stars of the Paleozoic Era) were the trilobites. We’re not sure what kind of arthropods they are, but that’s really the only major mystery of this now extinct group. Their woodlouse-like fossils are so prevalent, and their record so complete, that we have a good idea how they lived, what they ate, and what their reproductive cycle was like. The name means “three-lobed” and refers to the general structure of their exoskeleton: a cephalon or head, a thorax, and a pygidium or tail. They came in a variety of different body forms, including species with spines, species with enormous eyes, and species with thin bodies. There were free-floating planktonic forms and trilobites with eye-stalks that probably hid under the sand, but most trilobites appear to have been grazed on particulate food. The largest species grew to the size of bed pillows, large enough to eat other trilobites. In the Cambrian Period, they were the most common and most successful of the newly evolving animals.

The previously described animals were all protostomes, but deuterostomes had also expanded in diversity. One prominent group in the oceans were the echinoderms, who incorporated minerals into a strong but flexible inner skeleton or endoskeleton. A series of tubes stretches through their bodies and helps these animals breath, move, and feed. Echinoderms today include sea stars and urchins, and the earliest members of the group were mobile organisms. However most Cambrian echinoderms appear to have been filter-feeding, stalked animals, attached to the ocean floor. Other deuterostomes include the hemichordates, which were worms that supported their bodies with a long nerve cord and breathed through gill slits at their front ends.

Perhaps the most important group to animals such as ourselves are the chordates, because this is the lineage that humans and all other vertebrates belong to. Ironically enough, chordates did not play a large role in the Cambrian oceans, and as a whole they were probably uncommon in their ecosystems. Like hemichordates, chordates have gill slits and a nerve cord that runs through the body, but in this group the cord became supported by a rod stiffened by cartilage, the notochord. Also prevalent is a tail that helped these deuterostomes control their movement as they swam through the seas. Some of these chordates retained these ancestral traits and buried themselves into coastal marine sediments, becoming the lancelets. Others hollowed out their bodies and some of those secured themselves to rocks, becoming the sea squirts and salps. The ancestors of vertebrates developed early in the Cambrian Period, around 530 million years ago. Particularly good fossils from the Maotianshan shales of China show that two early vertebrates - Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia – had encased their brains in a skull and sported small vertebral elements around their notochord. These were not true bony vertebrae, but from these ancestral forms onwards there is a marked increase in bony hard-parts throughout the body. Animals like these were very fish-like, and for all intents and purposes could be called the earliest fishes.

By the end of the Cambrian Period, the abundance of minerals in the shallow seas changed nearly all of the major animal groups alive today, and in turn, they began to change their ecosystems as well. Prior to the Cambrian Explosion, much of the seas were covered in mats formed by microbial colonies, including those of cyanobacteria. With the rise of grazing animals like mollusks and echinoderms, these mats began to face decimation as the new animals feasted on them. As a consequence, these mat-forming microbes began to move deeper into the oceans and higher onto surface rocks where these newly-evolving animals could not get them.

Roughly 499 million years ago, deadly hydrogen sulphide levels rose and oxygen levels depleted in shallow marine waters and caused many different species to go extinct. Trilobites were severely affected, as were many unique forms of animal life. It is unclear what set off this change in ocean chemistry, but it set the conditions for new animals to evolve.

Part 2

The Ordovician began 485.4 million years ago and ended 443 million years ago. The massive continent of Gondwana moved slowly southwards and the remaining landmasses of Laurentia, Siberia, and Baltica gradually began to move towards each other. Small island continents slowly collided with Laurentia to the south and produced the first stages of the Appalachian Mountains. This continental drift caused the Iapetus Ocean to widen slightly, and there were still extensive shallow seas where large collections of sediments eroded into their waters. Like the period that preceded it, the Ordovician was mostly a hot, tropical world.

These warm oceans, now bounced back from their previous chemical changes, had many marine niches left open for species to fill. On top of that, the rise in minerals from erosion produced a bloom of planktonic organisms. There is a marked rise of fossils featuring new groups of animals during the beginning of this period, with the number of species tripling from previous levels over a 25 million-year timespan. This led paleontologists to coin a name for this time: The Global Ordovician Biodiversification Event. The animals that evolved during this period were to set the standard for marine faunas for the duration of the Paleozoic Era, and introduced a number of new modes of living. For the first time, animals began to make greater journeys out into the open ocean and some groups of mollusks and worms started burrowing deeper and deeper into the seafloor.

Reefs expanded in great numbers during the Ordovician, and the main builders during this period were a group of now-extinct sponges called stromatoporoids. They were originally thought to be types of corals because their skeletons were made of dense calcite minerals, much tougher than sponges nowadays. But they were not the only encrusting marine animals around. One of the last major groups of animals finally evolved in the Ordovician: the bryozoans. Sometimes called moss animals due to their superficial similarities, bryozoans live in hardened colonies that grow on rocks or the shells of animals. Each colony is made up of several tiny creatures with little tentacles to filter-feed with. Their numbers were significantly greater in the Paleozoic, but living species are not as common as other colonial animals like corals.

The major groups of mollusks continued to diversify, and the bivalves came into high prominence during the Ordovician. Like the unrelated brachiopods, bivalve mollusks have valved-shells (that’s where they get their name), and they’re filter-feeders, but rather than use filamentous tentacles to catch food, bivalves have plates of gills inside their shells, all lined up like a stack of paper. While the brachiopods controlled the deeper regions of the seas, bivalves were more content in nearshore waters where they didn’t have to compete for the same resources. Gastropod mollusks were doing well too, and a few of the dominant lineages evolved in the Ordovician, including the ancestors of limpets. Limpets have survived into the present day and their anatomy is remarkably ancient, lacking the coiled shells of their later relatives. Nonetheless, the conical shells of limpets are excellent adaptations: the animal can stick itself to rocks and completely cover its body with a tough exterior that most predators have difficulty with.

The heavy-weight champions of the Ordovician were the cephalopods. Although the majority of species today have reduced or lost their shells altogether, the earliest groups had spectacular shells. One lineage, the endocerids, could grow their shells up to 19 feet in length, making them the largest animals in the world at the time. They have been suggested to be major marine predators, using their tentacles to snag prey items, but it is equally possible that some species were filter-feeders. In any case, they would have been awkward animals to look at; because their giant shells were full of empty spaces the center of gravity would have made them float vertically in the water, with their tentacles facing downwards, like living icicles.

Despite their losses during the Cambrian extinction event, trilobites managed to bounce back and became more diverse than ever. Great swarms of them roamed the seabed, feeding on all sorts of organic materials. Some groups when threatened by predators could roll themselves up into a ball, using their head and tail to completely protect their soft undersides and legs, while other species used their spines for defense. There were plenty of new arthropod predators in those days, with the earliest eurypterids evolving 460 million years ago. Though they look like giant marine scorpions (and are commonly called sea scorpions), eurypterids were only distantly related to arachnids. Nonetheless, some species possessed scorpion-like pincers for snipping at prey, and one kind called Megalograptus had a spike at the end of its tail – though there’s no evidence that it was venomous. Crustaceans too were beginning to diversify. The first ostracods and branchiopods evolved: these are small-bodied animals that swim through the water with their arms or antennae. Ostracods are mostly microscopic and planktonic animals, but branchiopods are perhaps more familiar due to two major lineages: the water fleas and the brine shrimp (popularly marketed to children as ‘sea monkeys’).

All of the surviving lineages of echinoderms evolved during the Ordovician Period, including the first sea stars, brittle stars, urchins, sea cucumbers, and crinoids. Among these groups the crinoids are the least common in modern times, but during the Ordovician they were remarkably diverse, growing in groves around calm, shallow seas. Crinoids attached themselves to the ocean floors on long stalks and sported a comb of filter-feeding tentacles atop their heads. They shared their world with other long-gone lineages, including the blastoids, who looked like crinoids but had very pentagonal heads. A new lineage of hemichordates developed that were to become the dominant planktonic animals of the early Paleozoic: the graptolites. Despite their relation to the living worm-like species, graptolites were remarkably different. They were tiny colonial animals – like bryozoans – that lived in hardened tubes that simply floated along ocean currents. These tubes, made of proteins, often sported beautiful patterns and shapes, with some graptolites resembling fans or coils, and others lining their tubes with rows of spines or branches.

The vertebrate story continued at a slow pace. By the Ordovician, fish had evolved proper bones and covered their bodies in scales, and the majority of species had gone a step further and strengthened their scales into solid armor. Like most of the other animal groups, these would have proved to be a great defense against predation. However, fishes still remained a small part of the ecosystem. They were not apex predators, for they still lacked jaws and could only suck up soft-bodied food from the seafloor, and they did not venture out into the open oceans either, with all species remaining in shallow seas and along coastlines and estuaries.

The earlier development of the ozone layer proved to be a beneficial aid to life on Earth, allowing so many different marine organisms to thrive in the oceans, but for the first time ever, life began to colonize the terrestrial world. Up until the Ordovician, the only types of plants were marine species of red and green algae. The only land-living, photosynthetic organisms were the mats of cyanobacteria that moved onto surface rocks to escape the threat of grazing animals. Analyses on living species of green algae suggest that the first land plants developed from freshwater species and survived on land because they adapted their bodies to become waterproof (which prevented them from drying out). Fossils from 473 million years ago show plants very much like liverworts, which are the oldest surviving group of land plants today. Liverworts do not have roots or stems, but instead attach their flattened bodies called thalli to the ground. Like their algal relatives, liverworts and other early land plants reproduced with spores, which the adult plants release into the water where they land and grow into copies of their parents. This meant that, despite their terrestrial existence, the first land plants were restricted to warm, moist environments.

But they were not alone in their travels, because they were soon followed by the earliest land fungi. Fungi had already been around on Earth since the Proterozoic, making up on of the major groups of eukaryotic organisms. In fact, they are more closely related to animals then they are to plants, meaning you have more familial relations to the mushrooms in your soup than to the carrots or onions. Fungi are mostly decomposers: breaking down dead materials that provide them with nutrients. They had a ready food source when the first land plants began to die, and through their decomposition process they began to churn parts of the sediment, creating soil. All land plants today rely on soil for nutrients, so newly growing spores were treated to an increasingly safer environment, thanks to the fungi. Ever slowly the stage was set for the rise of terrestrial environments, as vast numbers of liverworts blanketed the margins of freshwater rivers and lakes.

The good times were not to last, as the Ordovician closed with a major mass extinction event. While the direct causes are still debated by researchers, the changing conditions at the time almost certainly put pressures on marine organisms. Analysis of rock formations around 450 million years ago demonstrate that carbon dioxide levels plummeted, while oxygen levels increased dramatically. As Gondwana moved south and covered the poles, the Earth became cool enough for glaciers to form there, which expanded and took in such large amounts of water that the sea levels dropped. Many of the warm, shallow marine environments were lost as a result, and as much as 86% of marine species went extinct. Yet again, the trilobites took some serious damage and their numbers never recovered to previous levels; and there were great losses of brachiopods, bryozoans, and graptolites. What happened to all the carbon dioxide? Hypotheses blame the drop in levels due to the rise of the first land plants, because their sheer numbers on land may have photosynthesized a little too well. Other evidence points to volcanic weathering causing the drop in carbon levels; remember, weathering of certain rocks often takes up carbon dioxide. The ice sheets at the south pole were at their greatest extent during the last seven million years of the Ordovician, but when the period ended much of the marine life in the oceans was gone.

The Silurian picks up where the Ordovician left off: a relatively short geologic period from 443.8 million to 419.2 million years ago. As the Earth’s overall climate warmed up again the glaciers began to recede in Gondwana, and the sea levels rose. The giant continent itself started inching northwards. By now, Laurentia and Baltica had connected together as one landmass called Euramerica, due to the inclusion of lands that would eventually become Europe and North America. Siberia remained isolated, and the Iapetus Ocean began to close as Gondwana and Euramerica moved closer to each other.

As it had done after the Cambrian, marine life rebounded following the Ordovician, but now there were depleted stocks. Trilobites and graptolites lost much of their diversity, and the great sponge reefs had lessened in number. In their place emerged two types of stony corals that had evolved quietly during the Ordovician. The first group and the ones that primarily formed the new reefs were the tabulate corals. They were colonial organisms, like living corals, and formed flattened, table-like structures in great quantities. Among them was the second group, the rugose corals, who could form colonies or remain as single organisms. Their bodies looked like horns, but they often angled themselves in their growth. Surprising as it may seem, corals are related to sea jellies: whereas sea jellies adapted themselves to be free-floating animals, corals flipped that body plan over and resided to an existence attached to rocks and seafloor sediments. These new coral reefs became great templates that supported a wide variety of animal life.

The iconic invertebrates of the Paleozoic, the giant cephalopods and frightening eurypterids, continued to stalk the oceans. Among the mollusks, the bivalves managed to radiate into a great number of new groups, given that their main competitors the brachiopods faced such heavy losses at the end of the Ordovician.

Fish became big winners during the Silurian Period, thanks to the evolution of true jaws. Given that the first fishes were jawless animals, how did this adaptation come to be? Genetic and anatomical evidence points to a change in development of the front most gill arches (the parts of the throat that provide support for the gills themselves). These migrated towards the exterior of the mouth and allowed that part of the body to close and open at will. Given that gills help fish take in oxygen from the water, this ability to work the mouth would have helped them take in more water (this feat is called buccal pumping). These ancestral jawed fishes could effectively breath faster than their contemporaries and as a result could swim better too. Over time, this adaptation found another function, fish that had strengthened the repurposed gill arches could now catch and kill prey with their mouths more efficiently. New dietary options opened up, and now the fishes of the Silurian could eat each other! The gill arches became true jaws. This remarkable change in physiology prompted the evolution of all the major groups of jawed fishes, and as a result, the jawless fishes were now about to face some serious competition.

The situation on land grew much more serious. As collections of plants and fungi changed the surfaces of freshwater coasts, new plants evolved to join their number. Among the liverworts were the first mosses, which had special structures called rhizoids that gave them some anchorage to the soil. New plants evolved later on, around 433 million years ago, that underwent significant structural changes to their bodies. These were the vascular plants, so named because inside their revolutionary new roots, stems, and leaves was a system of vein-like tubes that could take in water and nutrients and distribute them through their body. This was a more efficient system than what the liverworts and mosses had, because it meant that vascular plants had more strength to support their bodies in the gravitationally-dominant environment. One of the icons of Silurian botany is Cooksonia, which was one of the most common land plants at the time. They were relatively tiny plants, only growing as high as 2 inches, that had a Y-shaped prong structure. At the end of these prongs were their spores, which they could release into the wind. At the other end of the plant spectrum is Baragwanathia, which was among the tallest plants on land (growing up to 11 inches high). These plants were lycopods, one of the surviving members of this new flora that can still be found today. They’re distinguished among their peers by their covering of tiny leaves all along their stems, which increased their surface area and allowed more sunlight to be captured. Traits like these allowed lycopods and other vascular plants to outgrow their competitors and really change the landscape.

But the plants and fungi were no longer alone in their world. Fossil evidence indicates that for the first time, animals began to make serious trips onto the land. Prior to the Silurian, there is some fossil evidence that certain creatures were making small visits to the sandy coasts: for example, trackways have been found that have been identified with eurypterids and aquatic myriapods like millipedes. But these animals could not have permanently stayed on land because they still breathed with gills and so they had to return to the water to survive. Arthropods that managed to survive on land had underwent mutations that changed their bodies. The first land arachnids developed book lungs that were retained inside the body and took in oxygen from the air instead of water. Other arthropods like mandibulates switched out gills for a series of spherical holes along their bodies, connected to an interworking system of tubes that carried oxygen everywhere. Among all members of the group, their jointed limbs proved to be helpful in supporting their weight as they roamed the soils. By the end of the Silurian, arachnids (in the form of scorpions and a now extinct group called trigonotarbids) and myriapods (in the form of millipedes and centipedes) established a presence of land. With new resources like plant matter, some arthropods developed into herbivores, while others took advantage of the new prey items and remained carnivores. It is even possible that the ancestors of earthworms and nematodes were living on land at this time, though their soft-bodies would have not preserved well in these conditions. Thus, the first land ecosystems and food webs were in place.

Part 3

The Silurian Period passed calmly into the Devonian Period, 419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago. As Gondwana moved northwards it started to rotate as the lands that would become Australia and China began to move towards Siberia. Euramerica made contact with Gondwana by the middle of the Period, closing the Iapetus Ocean forever. This collision of continents pushed up great mountains along the connected landmasses: these were the precursors of the Caledonian Mountains, which today can be found along Greenland, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. This mountain building also helped push the Appalachians higher. The glaciers that dominated the south pole in the Silurian had receded significantly till they were almost nonexistent. Carbon dioxide levels rose, and the world became much warmer and dryer.

While tabulate corals were still doing well during the Devonian, the rugose corals increased in diversity and joined their relatives as the main reef-building organisms. Brachiopods and crinoids continued to filter-feed among the reefs, while eurypterids decreased in overall importance in marine ecosystems. Among the crustaceans, the earliest decapods evolved, which sport ten legs. The ancestral body plan of the first decapods was very shrimp-like, and indeed shrimp and prawns belong to this group (though these are interchangeable terms for the same animals that lack any scientific basis). More prominent members of the decapod group, like the crabs and lobsters, didn’t evolve until much later in the Mesozoic Era. The mollusks themselves also gave a world a new lineage of cephalopods, with strong sutured shells that formed coils. These were the ammonoids and they became predatory mollusks, unlike their filter-feeding relatives the endocerids (which, incidentally, died out during the Silurian).

The ammonoids and decapods proved to be very special organisms, because they featured in a remarkable adaptation event called the Nekton Revolution. Paleontologists coined this term to refer to a change in the fossil record when many organisms began to adapt to a swimming lifestyle. To be nektonic is to be free-swimming. Now more and more animals were occupying niches in the open ocean, and the seas began to crowd with an abundance of different organisms.

The fish, which had already developed into their main groups, were now diversifying into different forms and taking advantage of the new niches that were being created: it was the Age of the Fishes. One group of jawed fishes called antiarchs converted their front fins into hardened plates and moved their eyes to the tops of their heads, possibly helping them move along the seabed and bottom-feed. Another lineage, the chondrichthyans, made their internal skeletons cartilaginous (that is, made of cartilage instead of bone), which lightened their weight and made them faster and more efficient predators. This paved the way for the first sharks. It’s often been said that sharks have remained unchanged since the Devonian, but a quick glance at the fossil record debunks this: most of the early sharks of the Paleozoic were strange and weirdly-shaped animals, one example being Sethacanthus which sported an anvil-shaped growth at the top of its back that paleontologists have had difficulty explaining. Modern-type sharks won’t evolve for a long time. But the most spectacular of all the fishes in the Devonian were the arthrodires, who strengthened their heads and jaws with thick armor plating. The biggest members of the group included the open-ocean filter-feeder Titanichthys and the apex predator Dunkleosteus, both reaching lengths of up to 33 feet. With the rise of jawed fishes like these, nearly all marine ecosystems from the Devonian to the present day had vertebrate animals as their main predators.

Among the bony fishes stemmed two kinds. There were the ray-finned fishes or actinopterygians that trading in their fleshy front fins for a webbed-ray of bony or cartilaginous spines. In the present day, most fish species belong to this group. The other group of bony fishes kept their fleshy-fins and developed a lobed-anatomy where the fins encased a series of bones. These lobe-finned fishes or sarcopterygians are vital to the story of our evolution, because it was from this group that the ancestors of land vertebrates originated. How did this remarkable transition from aquatic animals to land animals take place?

The current fossil evidence we have points to the bony fishes of the Devonian evolving along seashores and coastal environments. Most of the lobe-finned fishes were finding food in estuaries and freshwater rivers. They were not particularly fast vertebrates, and they didn’t need to be, as they did not face any of the pressures of open ocean living that their relatives the ray-finned fishes faced. By growing out the bones in their fins and creating a wrist joint, sarcopterygians could skulk about the riverbed or cling to aquatic plants. Over time the fins became more flexible and more joints developed: from ankles to elbows. Now the sarcopterygians had proper limbs that allowed them to better move through their freshwater environment. But at the same time, this anatomy proved beneficial when a few of these fishes started making temporary journeys onto the shores in search of food, as there were plenty of arthropods already there. Repeated trips caused their skeleton to strengthen and become more flexible. The hip bones adjusted to the hind limbs and gave them more support, while the shoulders separated from the ribs to aid with steering the body. A neck formed, and some of the bones of the limbs moved outwards and formed digits. They could breathe the air with lungs and collect oxygen from the water with gills. It’s important to state that fishes ancestrally had air sacs: ray-finned fishes modified them into swim-bladders to aid with buoyancy, while lobe-finned fishes developed them into proper lungs. The stegocephalians had arrived, spearheaded by the appearance in the fossil record of forms like Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, and Ichthyostega. While these fishes were capable animals on land, able to shuffle along the sands and silts like seals and mudskippers do today, they were primarily aquatic and still gained most of their resources in the water. But it was a capable start of things to come.

The land became a truly inviting place during the Devonian. Liverworts, mosses, and lycopods blossomed into a number of larger forms, and they were joined by a host of new vascular plant lineages that grew into complex branching forms with the first proper leaves. Monilophytes – the group that includes the ferns and horsetails – gave their roots the ability to spread out and form new copies of itself. Because these structures form underground, they can allow monilophytes to survive in harsh conditions, meaning that the earliest ferns and horsetails were able to spread out farther than other plants previously could. Another lineage of vascular plants went from using spores to dividing their sex cells into different structures, with the female sex cells staying in the parent plant and the male sex cells needing to be dispersed as pollen grains. This simple adaptation allowed these plants called spermatophytes to increase their genetic diversity and their range of distribution, because now pollen could be carried further by the wind. Not only that, once the two sex cells met and formed an ovule (or egg), special cells were directed to form a hard outer layer around it. This shell enclosed a wet storage of food that sustained the embryonic plant until it could be planted somewhere else. This is how seeds formed, and fossils of Devonian plants called Elkinsia and Runcaria reveal this process in action. In the meantime, some of the members of the monilophytes and seed plants started to grow more and more vessels for transporting water up their stems. These structures were formed by an organic molecule called lignin, which itself was encased in another organic molecule called cellulose. Following generations of growth, the lignin-cellulose outer-layers of plants strengthened and hardened and gave rise to the first plants with woody stems. Wood is a tough material and it allowed plants to rocket to the skies: the first trees had evolved. Understandably, they started out small, but soon towered over their neighbors: one of the oldest trees, Wattieza, was 26 feet tall. With the evolution of seeds and wood, plants spread much farther from the waters than they ever could before.

Arthropods and mollusks flourished in the growing forests: the earliest mites, spiders, and harvestmen, accompanied by the first air-breathing snails. Insects begin their story in the Devonian, having evolved from freshwater crustaceans related to branchiopods in the Silurian. These hexapods, as their name suggests, developed a body plan with six legs. Some of these early hexapods adapted their tails to act as ‘spring-boards’ that could propel them away from predators. They survived to the present day, earning their common name springtails. The first insects distinguished themselves by growing larger and moving away from the underground, moist environment of their ancestors. They became herbivores, ingesting the leaves and stems of the new plants that were evolving. Like the springtails, remnants of this time still exist today in the form of the soil-living bristletails and those domestic pests the silverfish.

Right around the end of the Devonian struck a series of mass extinction events. The expansion of terrestrial plants with deep, piercing roots seems to have allowed great quantities of soil nutrients to wash away into the rivers and seas, causing oxygen levels in the water to decrease. This eutrophication would have caused vast regions of the seas to become anoxic and deadly for living things. It was a particularly damaging collection of extinction events: estimates place the loss of marine groups at 40-50%. Some of the organisms that were still recovering from their losses in the Ordovician, like the trilobites and brachiopods, were hit hard. In fact, all but one lineage of trilobites was wiped out. The graptolites, that curious lineage of hard-shelled, planktonic worms, vanished from the Earth, as did many unique forms of echinoderms and most of the newly-evolved ammonoids. The great reefs of tabulate corals and sponges met their end, leaving those organisms relegated to lesser roles in the ecosystem. The Age of Fishes ended with losses too: all of those weird and wonderful jawed fishes, the arthrodires, the antiarchs, and others, died in the low-oxygen oceans. Jawless fishes saw most of their number go extinct, leaving two lineages of worm-like animals, the hagfishes and the lampreys, to go on to present times.

Part 4

So the world entered a new period, the Carboniferous, from 358.9 million to 298.9 million years ago. Euramerica and Gondwana remained connected as a giant continent, but by the middle of the period those pieces of Gondwana that would go on to form the lands of China had collided with Siberia. In turn, these ancestral Asian lands pushed against Euramerica and rose up the Ural Mountains. A vast expanse of water was opened, creating a new ocean called the Paleo-Tethys. Parts of Gondwana still hovered over the south pole, and the small glaciers there slowly began to grow again. At the western edge of Euramerica, the Rockies were beginning to raise.

But the primary modifiers of the Earth’s land and climate would prove to be the living things that resided upon it. The seas of the world were much reduced in diversity following the Devonian Extinction Events, and for a period of time there were no major reef-building organisms. The rugose and tabulate corals were still around – in lower numbers – but they did not form reefs. In their place emerged great forests of crinoids, those stalked echinoderms that filter-feed through the water. Often termed ‘meadows’, these expanses of crinoids grew and died in such rapid succession that they formed deposits of limestone.

On land, the foundations of the world’s coal deposits were developing. As plants continued to evolve and spread across the land, great forests grew and went on to cover much of the available land. New species of trees evolved among the vascular and non-vascular plants. Some kinds of lycopod, like Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, could tower 130 feet in the air and sported scale-like bark. There were giant horsetails too: Calamites reached up to 66 feet high and in some cases had stems 24 inches thick. Tree ferns were present and seed plants also produced enormous forms, like the 148-foot high Cordaites. As you can see, giant trees were the norm in the Carboniferous. There were so many tough, woody plants around, but nothing to eat them. Despite a patchy fossil record, we can be confident that wood-eating bacteria and fungi had not evolved yet because of how these trees ended up dying. When they eventually dropped to the ground, rather than decompose, the trees got covered up by swampy sediments. Over time, the remains of the trees piled on top of each other, and millions of years of heat and pressure from the Earth’s surface converted the biological remains into coal deposits. The most prominent remains of coal come from Carboniferous rocks, which is what gave the period its name: due to the lack of decomposition, all the carbon that the plant took in is still there. Keep this in mind for later.

With so many forests on the land, carbon dioxide levels plummeted while oxygen levels rose significantly: over 30% above present day levels. In turn, the presence of so much oxygen in the air (plus the fact that wood now existed) meant that passing lightning strikes could spark fires for the first time. All this oxygen had another adverse effect on animal life too.

Due to the way arthropods breathe, the more oxygen is available to them, the larger they get. This period of Earth’s history is famous for its abundance of seemingly-improbable giant arthropods. The myriapods begat the giant millipede-relative Arthropleura, an herbivorous species that grew over 7 feet long. There were massive three-foot scorpions roaming the coal forests, preying on the hordes of new terrestrial species. And insects truly began to diversify during this time. The key adaptation that marked the path for the insects was wings. While still a controversial discussion in paleontology, genetic and morphological evidence has suggested that the precursors of insect wings developed from gills that became repurposed for movement in air rather than water. The first wings were stiff structures that were held outwards from the body, and these were found in the first mayflies, dragonflies, and damselflies. Relatives of these insects, the dragonfly-like griffinflies were among the giant arthropods of the Carboniferous. The wingspan of one called Meganeura reached 26 inches meaning that it would have been a formidable aerial predator. Later insects modified their wings to fold inwards towards their bodies, and this proved to be a beneficial change because it meant that these delicate structures could be protected from wear and tear. By the end of the Carboniferous, the ancestors of grasshoppers, cockroaches, lacewings, and beetles had made a home for themselves in the coal forests.

Stegocephalians remained mostly aquatic animals for most of the Carboniferous, but a descendant branch of this group, the tetrapods, began to diversify into a myriad number of lineages. Tetrapods are proper four-limbed vertebrates that all (at least ancestrally) retained five digits on each foot. One group, the temnospondyls, produced crocodile-like forms that lurked in the swamps and fed upon large aquatic animals. It is among the temnospondyls that we find the ancestors of true amphibians, who retained an aquatic larval stage. Other tetrapods formed lineages that did not survive the Paleozoic, including worm-like animals that lost their limbs. The most significant development in the vertebrate story was the amniotic egg, where the embryo is stored with water and nutrients inside a hardened shell that could be laid on the land, rather than in water. With so many opportunities for predators to feast upon the jelly-like, soft eggs of their predecessors, this adaptation meant a better chance for survival. So the amniotes evolved to become proper terrestrial animals, able to survive away from the water and take on the newly emerging ecosystem that is the land. As a consequence of living in a dry world, amniotes developed toughened, water-proof skins and claws on their digits allowed them to better maneuver over rough surfaces or brush. By the end of the Carboniferous, two lineages of amniotes had evolved, becoming the two great groups of land vertebrates: the sauropsids or reptiles, and the synapsids, the ancestors of mammals. The two groups are distinguished by the placement of holes behind the eye socket that aid with jaw-muscle attachment. Reptiles typically have two holes behind their eye socket, while synapsids have just one. And there were herbivorous and carnivorous species that played vital roles in their food webs.

The Carboniferous was a dramatic time for life. The effects of the coal forests proved too great for the planet, and the resulting losses of carbon dioxide and gains of oxygen caused the Gondwanan glaciers to grow in size until they expanded across the continent. The climate cooled and caused many of the forested swamps to fragment in size or die off altogether. Wetland-adapted tetrapods died off in huge numbers and many of the giant lycopod trees perished as well. It was the hardy plants and animals that took over their ecosystems. Ferns and seed plants expanded their range and formed vast swaths, and the amniotes diversified in the new drying world. This glaciation was short-lived, but of course that meant that its effects put greater pressure on life as a whole.

The final period of the Paleozoic Era was the Permian, 298.9 to 251.9 million years ago. The Gondwanan glaciation ended during the early part of this time, around 280 million years ago, and the levels of carbon dioxide rose again. The famous supercontinent of Pangaea formed during this time, as the Gondwana-Euramerica landmass collided with Siberia and the other continents. This meant that, had our modern borders been present at the time, you could walk from Sumatra to Argentina without ever needing to cross a body of water. With the shrinking of the coal forests and the rise of upland, terrestrial ecosystems, vast parts of the land were not in contact with any river or coastline and they subsequently dried up and formed deserts and scrublands. Thus, the Permian was a hot, dry planet, but one populated by animals and plants that could withstand it.

Marine faunas bounced back slightly, and sponges once again took the helm as the main reef-builders. Brachiopods and bryozoans managed to do very well and were common animals in the seas, while the trilobites were few and unimportant. Ammonoids regained their former numbers. The diversity of fishes, while much reduced from their Devonian days, was still high, and there was even room for experimentation. A relative of sharks and rays, Helicoprion, sported a strange coiled row of teeth in its mouth and this baffled paleontologists for years because no one knew where exactly it was supposed to go. Reconstructions abounded, with some placing the whorl at the front of the jaws and some placing it deep in the throat. The most recent interpretation, based on better fossils, finds the tooth whorl in the center of the lower jaw where it stuck out awkwardly.

Alongside the ferns grew newer kinds of seed plants. Gymnosperms did remarkably well in the drier parts of the land, with the first cycads and ginkgoes taking root in the sands. Conifers (represented today by species like pine, spruce, and fir) had evolved in the Carboniferous, but they flourished during the Permian. Despite all this diversity, the most common tree in the world was not a conifer but a seed-bearing plant called Glossopteris. What made this plant so hardy was ability to cope with colder environments, including mountain ranges.

Tetrapods roamed over the warmer and wetter regions of the planet, with giant temnospondyls sharing the swamps, lakes, and rivers with equally giant predatory lobe-finned fishes called rhizodonts. The stars of the Permian lived on land, however. The amniotes spread out far and wide over the Pangaean supercontinent and took on nearly every niche and body type available. Among the reptiles were the first land vertebrates to return to an aquatic existence, with later varieties occupying more of an amphibious niche: periodically switching between land and water. Some reptiles took to the air, developing membranous structures along their sides for short gliding. The earliest ancestors of turtles appear to have lived about this time, too.

Most of the apex predatory and herbivorous niches went to synapsids, who often were the largest animals in their ecosystem. The earliest synapsids were lizard-like animals, that walked with a sprawling gait and had an ectothermic physiology, gaining heat from their surrounding environment for metabolic functions. Included among these ancient synapsids is Dimetrodon, which sported a row of spines along its back that were encased in webbing. It was originally thought that structures like these aided in their ectothermy, with excess heat being released by the sail while winds that blew on it cooled the animal, but recent studies now dispute this: it just doesn’t seem to work like that. Newer studies have shown a role of the sail in courtship displays, meaning that Dimetrodon was almost certainly a colorful animal.

Later synapsids gradually adapted their bodies to better efficiency. The limbs were placed underneath the body, and the sprawling gait was traded in for a walking locomotion. This would have changed their physiology too, and this has prompted many paleontologists to view these newer animals, called therapsids, as endothermic (able to generate their own internal heat). Therapsids were increasingly mammal-like vertebrates and they were more efficient predators and herbivores. Some species took on a burrowing lifestyle, while others became arboreal (living in trees). Some reached enormous sizes and resembled ferocious pigs, while others were sleek and almost weasel-like. The most spectacular members of this group, and the dominant predators of the later Permian times, were the gorgonopsians. They sported fangs that certainly helped them deliver crushing blows to their prey, and some species grew over 11 feet long.

But no matter how hardy a species you are, whether an apex predator or a cold-adapted tree, you’re not guaranteed safety from extinction. It was at the end of the Permian Period, 252 million years ago, that the mother of all mass extinctions occurred. Based upon all the evidence we have, paleontologists have recognized that around this time, a series of volcanic eruptions in Siberia unleashed a huge blanket of lava over the continent. As volcanoes do, carbon dioxide would have been released into the air, but this was on a scale of gigatons (that is, a billion tons). Over the rapid 1-million-year period of these eruptions, as much as 170,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide were belched into the air, triggering a devastating greenhouse effect that warmed the entire planet. The waters of the world became acidic and the land dried and cracked with heat. Life never came so close to being killed off, as 80-96% of all organisms went extinct. The list of casualties is pretty long, but among the animals we have met during our voyage through time, every trilobite, eurypterid, rugose, and tabulate coral was wiped away. Brachiopods, bryozoans, echinoderms, mollusks, and arthropods suffered heavy losses. For the first time during a mass extinction event, land animals were heavily effected, with many of the newly evolved synapsids, reptiles, and temnospondyls suffocating and starving to death. The only organisms that managed to actually thrive in this hellish world were colonies of sulfur-eating bacteria.

Yes, life was almost rendered extinct on Earth, but it wasn’t. The fact that you are here right now is a testament to the versatility and resourcefulness of your ancestors. To have survived the near end of the world and then go on to fill the next is a great gift, and one that should be embraced whole-heartedly. When the Paleozoic ended and the Mesozoic began, the slate was wiped clean and a new story could be told.

And with that, we must lay anchor to our river journey. In the next episode, we enter the Mesozoic Era. This was the golden age of the dinosaurs, the most famous prehistoric animals of all. But they were not the only new organisms to call the Earth home. They shared the world with a host of strange plants, mollusks, insects, fishes, and reptiles, as well as the direct ancestors of the mammalian lineage. That incredible time and all the events that shaped it, will be told to you.

That’s the end of this episode of On the River of History. If you enjoyed listening in and are interested in hearing more, you can visit my new website at www.podcasts.com, just search for ‘On the River of History’. A transcript of today’s episode is available for the hearing-impaired or for those who just want to read along: the link is in the description. And, if you like what I do, you’re welcome to stop by my Twitter @KilldeerCheer. You can also support this podcast by becoming a patron, at www.patreon.com/JTurmelle: any and all donations are greatly appreciated and will help continue this podcast. Thank you all for listening and never forget: the story of the world is your story too.

#Transcripts #On the River of History

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born-to-make-pirozhki · 7 years

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The Food Eyecatches in Yuri!!! on Ice

So I just noticed that each dish’s name is the in the background of the eyecatches, and I feel silly for not having noticed them before! I’m a huge foodie, so I decided to look into each of the dishes featured during the commercial breaks of the show! Sources, including image sources, are provided at the end of each section.

Episode 1: Pirozhki

Literally meaning “small pies” in Russian, pirozhki (пирожки) are little pies or buns that can either be baked or fried. They can be stuffed with savory fillings, such as meat, fish, vegetables, or potatoes, or sweet fillings, such as fruit, jam, or cottage cheese. They are often glazed with egg to produce its signature golden brown color. The traditional pirozhki we see in the show appear to be filled with beef and possibly cheese. (x) (x)

Episode 2: Katsudon

Katsudon (カツ丼) is a bowl of rice that is topped with deep-fried pork cutlets, egg, vegetables, and other condiments. The name of the dish is a portmanteau of the Japanese words tonkatsu (豚カツ), meaning “pork cutlet,” and donburi (丼), meaning “rice bowl.” There many different variations of katsudon, and the one that we see in the show is the most well-known, called tamago-toji katsudon (卵とじカツ丼), meaning “egg-bound cutlet bowl.” A modern tradition has developed for students and athletes to eat katsudon the night before a test or sporting event for good luck, or afterwards as a reward, since the Japanese word “katsu” (勝つ) also can mean “to win” or “to be victorious.” (So this is actually not a tradition specific to Yuuri, it’s a Japanese tradition in general.) (x) (x) (x)

Episode 3: Shochu

Shochu (焼酎) (not to be confused with the Korean soju [소주] or the Chinese shaojiu [烧酒]) is an alcoholic beverage typically distilled from rice, but it can also be distilled from a variety of sources including barley, sweet potatoes, and buckwheat (soba). It is typically 25% alcohol by volume, which is stronger than wine and sake, but weaker than whiskey and vodka. It originated in the Japanese region of Kyushu, and the particular shochu pictured here is from the Saga prefecture, which is where Karatsu (the inspiration for Hasetsu) is located. It’s called “Makai heno Izanai” (魔界への誘), meaning “Invitation to Makai,” which is where the demons of Japanese folklore live.

This shochu is produced by using black koji and sweet potatoes; black koji is a kind of mold that’s used to break down the starches in the potatoes so that they can start to ferment into alcohol. The kind of koji used greatly affects the final taste of the shochu, and black koji specifically gives shochu a signature strong aroma and a sweet and mellow taste. You can actually buy this exact shochu at Amazon.jp, though there are several countries they will not ship to, including the US. (The page also includes pictures of the distillery and the production process, so it’s worth checking out regardless!) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Episode 4: Ika Sushi

“Ika” (イカ) is Japanese for “squid.” “Ika sushi” is actually an incorrect name for the particular dish pictured here, as sushi means sliced fish over rice. This particular dish is actually called ika no ikizukuri (イカの活造り), meaning “live squid sashimi” (yes, LIVE). It’s also a specialty of Yobuko town in Karatsu, which again is the inspiration for the show’s Hasetsu. It’s made by taking a live squid out of a tank and preparing it immediately, which keeps the squid’s transparent look. Here’s a video of the dish, where you can still see the squid twitching!!!! (x)

Episode 5: Kibi Dango

Kibi dango (吉備団子) are sweet confections made with glutinous rice flour called mochiko (もち米粉) (which is the same flour used to make mochi) and are sometimes filled with a sweet flavored syrup. Three to four dango are usually served on a skewer, and they’re often accompanied by green tea. There are many different kinds of dango, some of which are regional or are made during a specific time of year, like the hanami dango for cherry blossom season.

Kibi dango are from the former Japanese Kibi province, which is where the Okayama prefecture is today (Okayama is where the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship took place in episode 5). Originally, kibi dango were made from millet, and those are inextricably tied to the Japanese legend of Momotaro (Peach Boy), in which he touts them as the "number one” dango in Japan. Kibi dango confectioners will often tie Momotaro into their marketing so their products have that same positive connotation. Both kibi dango and Momotaro are very important aspects of the cultural heritage of Okayama. The kibi dango pictured here appear to be made with Okinawan purple sweet potatoes and are dusted with kinako (黄粉), which is roasted soy bean flour. (x) (x) (x)

Episode 6: Hinabe

Hinabe (火鍋) is the Japanese word for Chinese hot pot. Hot pot originated in the Chinese province of Sichuan, which is known for its spicy food, as a meal for port workers and fishermen. The idea was to mask poor and unappetizing cuts of meat (including offal, the insides and entrails of an animal) with lots of spices to disguise its low quality, but eventually hot pot became a very popular dish that now uses more fragrant spices and higher quality meat.

Having a hot pot meal is a unique experience (hence why Victor is so excited to go eat it!): Sharing family-style, you poach various raw ingredients--including all different kinds of thinly-sliced meat, seafood, noodles, dumplings, and vegetables--in different kinds of simmering broth (top picture) and then eat them when they’re finished cooking (bottom picture). There are also usually lots of really flavorful dipping sauces to use!

In the eyecatch, the soup on the left is Chinese herbal soup, a non-spicy clear soup made with chicken stock, ginger, scallions, goji berries, and dates. Cooked ingredients pictured here include shiitake mushrooms, spinach, and daikon radishes. The soup on the right is mala soup (麻辣火鍋), whose broth is made with Sichuan peppercorn, chili pepper, spicy bean paste, garlic, and a mix of aromatic spices--it can be so spicy that it can have a numbing effect! Cooked ingredients pictured here include chicken, daikon radishes, and wontons. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Episode 7: Shanghai Gani

“Gani” (蟹) is Japanese for “crab.” Specifically, this is Chinese mitten crab (上海毛蟹), also known as the Shanghai hairy crab, which is named for its furry claws that look like mittens (warning: pic is kind of creepy!). It’s a popular dish to eat in autumn (which is when the Cup of China takes place, hence its appearance here), and it’s a delicacy: It can cost $100 USD for two pounds of crabs! The crab pictured here has been steamed, which is the traditional Shanghainese way of preparing it, and it’s often served with dipping sauce made of rice vinegar, sugar, and ginger. (x) (x) (x)

Episode 8: Borscht

Originating in Ukraine, borscht (Russian: борщ or Yiddish: באָרשט‎) is a sour soup found in many Eastern European cuisines, and all of them have their own variation of the dish. There are so many different kinds of borscht that it would be difficult to cover them all here, so I’d check out the Wikipedia article if you’re interested. The borscht pictured here most likely includes meat or bone stock, sautéed vegetables, fermented beetroot juice (which provides the signature red color), sour cream (probably an Eastern European kind called smetana), and parsley. (x) (x)

Episode 9: Tsuboyaki

Wow, I cannot even believe how much trouble this one gave me. So from what I can find, it appears that this is a dish that you can really only find in Russian restaurants in Japan. (It’s kind of similar to pasta alfredo in that way, which is a dish that’s really popular in in Italian restaurants in America, but is not a traditional Italian dish, and the only places that you’ll find it in Italy are restaurants that cater to tourists.)

Anyway, so “tsuboyaki” (つぼ焼き) means “pot roast” in Japanese (though it usually refers to sazae no tsuboyaki, which is grilled turban shell), and it’s a Japanese take on Russian cream of mushroom soup that Japanese restaurants call “guribami” (グリバーミ) (”griby” [грибы] is just Russian for “mushrooms”), which you can see in the “after” eyecatch. It sometimes has potatoes or seafood in it, and it has a baked soft bread or puff pastry on top. You can then poke through the bread to eat it with the soup. The closest traditional Russian equivalent I could find is called gorshochke (горшочке), which are usually hearty meat-and-vegetable stews baked in traditional Russian clay pots with lids. The bread on top is optional, but the dough acts like a lid that keeps all of the heat inside the pot, and the bread then absorbs all of the yummy aromas! (x) (x) (x)

Episode 10: Paella

Paella is a saffron rice dish that originated in the Spanish region of Valencia. It’s baked in a traditional pan called a paellera, pictured here. It’s traditionally cooked over an open fire while burning orange tree branches, pine branches, and pine cones to infuse it with an aromatic smoke. Traditional Valencian paella (paella valenciana) usually includes chicken, rabbit, green beans, and other vegetables, but the more well-known take is the seafood paella (paella de marisco) pictured here. This paella includes mussels, shrimp, prawns, and calamari. (x) (x) (x)

Episode 11: Gambas a la Plancha

Gambas a la Plancha is Spanish for “griddled prawns.” The prawns are prepared using a griddle or large frying pan over an open fire, which retains all of the juices from the prawns that would otherwise drip through a regular grill. It’s a simple dish, usually made with olive oil, garlic, parsley, and lemon. They’re commonly served in Spain as tapas, which are small appetizers or snacks. (x) (x)

Episode 12: Pinchos

Pinchos, Spanish for “thorns” or “spikes,” are traditional Northern Spain snacks often eaten in bars or taverns while drinking wine and socializing. They’re an essential part of local culture particularly in the Navarre and Basque regions of Spain (though you’ll usually find them on a skewer in Basque, where they’re called “pintxos”). They’re similar to tapas (and are sometimes just called tapas in some parts of Spain), but pinchos will always have a toothpick or skewer, often attached to a piece of baguette-style bread. Common ingredients in pinchos include cooked or smoked fish, seafood, pickles, cheese, peppers, eggs, and jelly spreads. (x) (x) (x)

If you have any questions, corrections, or additions for any of the dishes or information in this post, please don’t hesitate to PM me!

#yoi #yuri on ice #eyecatches #anime #food #katsudon #pirozhki

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margdarsanme · 4 years

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NCERT Class 12 History Chapter 8 Peasants, Zamindars and the State Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire

NCERT Class 12 History Solutions

Chapter 8 Peasants, Zamindars and the State Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire

NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS SOLVED : Q 1. What are the problems in using the Ain as a source for reconstructing agrarian history? How do historians deal with this situation?

Ans.

(a) The Ain-i Akbari written by Abu’l Fazl in 1598 contains invaluable information for reconstructing the agrarian history of the Mughals. But it has its own limitations.

(b) Numerous errors in totalling have been detected. These are, however, minors and do not detract from the overall quantitative accuracy of the manuals.

(c) Another limitation is the skewed nature of the data. Data was not collected uniformly from all provinces. For example, Abu’l Fazl has not given any description regarding the caste composition of the zamindars of Bengal and Orissa (Odisha).

(d) The fiscal data collected from various sources is in detail yet some important parameters such as, wages and prices have not been incorporated properly.

(e) The detailed list of prices and wages found in the Ain-i Akbari have been acquired from data pertaining to the capital Agra and its surrounding regions. It is, therefore, of limited value for the rest of the empire.

(f) Historians have dealt with the situation by supplementing the account of the Ain by information got from the provinces. These include detailed seventeenth- eighteenth centuries revenue records from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. These have been also supplemented by records of the East India Company.

Q 2. To what extent is it possible to characterise agricultural production in the sixteenth- seventeeth centuries as subsistence agriculture? Give reasons for your answer.

Ans.

(a) During Mughal, India was basically an agricultural country. In the Mughal state of India a different varieties of crops were produced. In Bengal two varieties of rices were produced. But the focus on the cultivation of basic crops does not mean that only subsistence agriculture existed in medieval India.

(b) The Mughal state encouraged peasants to cultivate varieties of crops which brought in revenue especially cotton and sugarcane.

(c) Cotton was mainly grown in vast area which was spread over central India and the deccan plateau, whereas in Bengal sugarcane was mainly produced.

(d) Many varieties of cash crops such as oilseeds including mustard and lentils.

(e) An average peasant of that time grew both commercial and subsistence crops. Q 3.Describe the role played by women in agricultural production.

Ans.

(a) Women played an important role in agricultural production. They worked shoulder to shoulder with men in the fields. The men tilled and ploughed the lands whilethe women sowed, weeded and threshed the harvest. Agricultural production at the time was carried out with the labour and resources of the entire.

(b) The women performed important tasks such as spinning yarn, kneading clay for pottery and embroidery. Thus, the peasant women who were skilled artisans worked not only in the fields but even went to their employer’s houses and even to the markets, if necessary.

(c) Among the landed gentry class women had the right to inherit property. Women, including widows participated in the rural land market. Selling property which they had inherited especially in Punjab.

(d) Both Hindu and Muslim women inherited zamindaris. They were free to sell or mortgage their zamidari rights. In eighteenth century, Bengal had many women- zamindars. In fact, the Rajshah zamindari which was one of the most famous of the time was headed by a woman. Q 4. Discuss, with examples, the significance of monetary transactions during the period under consideration.

Ans.

(i) The political stability provided by the Mughal helped in establishing hoarsening trade relation with Ming (china), Safavid (Iran) and Ottoman (Turkey) empires. It led to increase in outland trade from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

(ii) The Discovery of new lands and sea routes also gave an impetus to Asia’s trade with Europe. As a result enormous amount of silver entered India as payment for goods bought from India.

(iii) Jovanni Karari, an Italian traveller, who passed through India in 1690 has written how the silver reached India from all parts of the world. From his description, we also came to know how there was an exchange of cash and goods in India in the 17th century.

(iv) This benefitted India as she did not have enough resources of silver. Therefore, from the sixteenth to the eighteeth centuries there was sufficient reserves of silver in India and the silver rupya was available readily.

(v) The mutual exchange in villages took place. As villagers established their links in the urban markets, there was a considerable increase in monetary transactions. In this way, villages became an important part of the monetary market.

(vi) It was due to the monetary transactions, became easier to pay daily wages to the labourers in cash and not in kind. This resulted in an unprecedented expansion in the minting of coins and circulation of money allowing the Mughal state to extract taxes and revenues in cash. Q 5. Examine the evidence that suggests that land revenue was important for the Mughal fiscal system.

Ans.

(i) Agriculture was the mainstay of the economy. Land Revenue collected was used to pay salaries and to meet different kinds of administrative expenses. So it was considered important to establish an administrative apparatus to ensure control over agricultural production.

(ii) Thus, before fixing land revenue, Mughal state first acquired specific information about the extent of agricultural lands and their produce.

(iii) Land revenue collection arrangements was consisted of two stages of assessment. These were Jama and hasil. Cultivators were given the choice to pay land revenue either in cash or kind. The state preferred to collect land revenue as cash. Attempts were made to maximize profits from the land revenue collection.

(iv) Both cultivated and cultivable lands were measured in each province to fix land revenue. According to a decree of Akbar, it was the responsibility of malguzar to make cultivator pay land revenue in kind and it was also kept open. Thus, it is clear from the evidence that the monetary transactions were very important. To continue this policy efforts by subsequent emperors like Aurangzeb continued to measure land for collection of land revenue. Q 6. To what extent to do you think caste was a factor in influencing social and economic relations in agrarian society?

Ans.

(i) Cultivators were divided on the basis of their caste and other caste-like distinctions or caste-based distinctions. Thus, among the peasants were many who worked as agricultural labourers (majurs) or worked as manacles. Thus, they were not allowed to live in villages. They resided outside the village and were assigned to do menial tasks and lacked resources. Thus, they were poverty-stricken.

(ii) Caste distinctions had also begun to permeate other communities as well. In Muslim communities menials were like halkhoron (scavengers). A direct relation existed between caste poverty and social status.

(iii) In the seventeenth century Marwar Rajputs are described as peasants and equated with jats. They were given an inferior status in the caste hierarchy.

(iv) Castes like Ahirs, Gujjars and Malis reached and elevated status in the eastern regions.

(v) The pastoral and fishing castes like the Sadgops and Kaivatas acquired the status of peasants. Q 7. How were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?(or) Describe the lives of forest-dwellers in the 16-17th centuries.

Ans. Transformation in the lives of forest-dwellers (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries):

(i) Huge areas were covered with forests in the various parts of India in the 16th and 17th country. Forest-dwellers were called Jangli. The term ‘Jungli’ was used to describe those whose occupations included activities such as hunting, gathering of forest produce, and shifting cultivation. These activities were performed according to a specific reason in the various regions. Consider the example of the Bhils who fished in summer and collected forest produce in spring. Such activities enabled the forest tribes to be mobile which was a characteristic feature of their life.

(ii) As the state required elephants for the consolidation of mighty army, the peskesh levied on the forest people to supply of elephants.

(iii) The lives of the forest-dwellers led to the spread of commercial agriculture. Forest products like honey, beeswax, gum and lac were in huge demand. Gum and lac became major items of overseas exports in the seventeenth century, and earned valuable foreign exchange.

(iv) Elephants were also captured and sold.

(v) Tribes like the Punjab Lohanis engaged in overland trade with Afghanistan and internal trade in Punjab as well.

(vi) Social factors were also responsible for transforming the lives of the forest- dwellers.

(vii) Many tribal chiefs became zamindars, some even became kings. They recruit people from their own tribes in their army For example in Assam, the Ahom Kings depended on people who rendered military services in exchange of land.

(viii) By the sixteenth century, the transition from a tribal to a monarchial system had taken place. In Ain-i Akbari description has been mentioned about the existence of tribal kingdoms in north-eastern India. Description is also made regarding the kings who fought and conquered a number of tribes. New cultural influences also entered in the forested areas. Probably sufi saints played a remarkable role in spreading Islam in these areas. Q 8. Examine the role played by zamindars in Mughal India.

Ans. The zamindars were the people who did not directly participate in the processes of agricultural production, but they enjoyed high status in the society.

(i) The zamindars considered their land as their property (milkiyat). They had control to sell, give and mortage their property.

(ii) They enjoyed many social and economic privileges because of their superior status in society.

(iii) The zamindars belonged to the upper caste which added to their exalted status in society.

(iv) The zamindars rendered certain services (khidmat) for the state. As a result of their service they received and attained higher position in the state.

(v) The zamindars had the right to collect revenue on behalf of the state and also received financial compensation for this work.

(vi) The zamindars had kept strict control over the military resources of the state. They kept a fortress and a well knit armed unit comprising cavalry, artillery and infantry.

(vii) The zamindars also played significant role in developing the agricultural land. They helped in the settlements of farmers by lending them money and agricultural instruments. It resulted in an increase in agricultural produce and the sale and purchase of land by the zamindars. There are also evidences that the zamindars held bazaars. The farmers came to these bazaars to sell their crops.

(viii) If we observe social relation of village of Mughal age as a pyramid then zamindars were at the top. They occupied the highest position in the society.

(ix) No doubt the zamindars exploited the people but their relations with the farmers depended on their mutual togetherness and hereditary part on age. So, they were able to get peasants in case of the revolt against the state. Q 9. Discuss the ways in which panchayat and village headmen regulated rural society. (or) Explain the role of Panchayats in the Mughal rural Indian society during 16th-17th centuries.

Ans. Regulation of rural society by panchayats and headmen:

(i) Meaning of panchayat: The village panchayat consisted of an assembly of elders, they represent different castes and communities except the menial class. Usually important were people of the village with hereditary right over their property.

(ii) General composition and function: In the mixed caste village, the panchayat was usually a heterogeneous body. The panchayet represented different castes and communities in the village. The village panchayat was headed by Muqaddam also known as mandal. He was elected with consensus of the village elders and remained in the office till he enjoyed the confidence of village elders. His function was to prepare village account with the help of patwari.

(a) The main function of panchayat was to ensure that caste boundaries among the various communities inhabiting the village were upheld. (b) It had also the authority to levy fines and taxes.

(iii) It can also give punishment like expulsion from the community.

(iv) Each Jati in the village had its own Jati panchayat. Jati Panchayat wielded considerable power in the society. In Rajasthan, the Jati panchayats arbitrated civil disputes between members of the different castes. It also mediated in disputes claims on land, decided whether marriages had been performed according to that castes norm, etc. In most cases, the state respected the decisions taken by the Jati Panchayat.

(v) The panchayats were also regarded as the court of appeal, that would ensure that the state carried out its moral responsibilities.

(vi) For justice petitions were often made to the panchayat collectively by a group of caste or a community protesting against what they considered to be morally illegitimate demands on the part of elites.

(vii) In cases of excessive revenue demands, the panchayat often suggested a compromise. If this failed, the peasants took recourse to more drastic forms of punishment such as deserting the village. Q 10. On an outline map of world, mark the areas which had economic links with the Mughal Empire, and trace out possible routes of communication.

Ans. Iran, Afghanistan, China, the countries of Central and Western Asia, Italy, Portugal, France, Britain, Holland, etc. Possible Routes : Trade that linked to Mughal Empire in India.

(i) Sea route via Atlantic ocean to Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean.

(ii) Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal to China Sea.

(iii) Land Route from Central Asia to Afghanistan through modem Pakistan upto Kerala or Goa.

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#NCERT Class 12 History

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angrycollectordaze-me-blog · 5 years

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Paper代写：The ceramic jewelry

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的paper代写范文- The ceramic jewelry，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了陶瓷首饰。陶瓷首饰起源于法国，是由名为贝尔纳多的著名陶艺工艺师进行创意设计的，国外的陶瓷首饰拥有强烈的国家品牌特点，德国陶瓷首饰设计最大特色就是拥有强烈的现代设计感，浓重的工业设计气息。意大利的陶瓷首飾比较注重材料方面的设计表现，以品牌宝格丽为代表的经典黑白色戒指，很受消费者欢迎。亚洲国家主要追求的产品造型及设计文化，韩国的陶瓷首饰关注款式的时尚性，陶瓷色彩的设计表达。日本的陶瓷首饰设计细腻淳朴，与日本关注设计细节的传统密不可分。

With the development of creative economy, ceramics, as a creative symbol, have been applied in more and more fields. It is no longer limited to catering utensils, cultural gifts, family decoration, collection and appreciation, and can be used as a part of body decoration, namely ceramic jewelry. Its symbolic value and cultural value can be further manifested.

Ceramic jewelry originated in France, is by the name of bernardo famous ceramic craft for creative design, foreign ceramic jewelry has a strong national brand characteristics, German ceramic jewelry design is the biggest feature of a strong sense of modern design, strong industrial design atmosphere. Italian ceramic jewelry pays more attention to the design expression of material respect, the classical black and white ring that is represented with brand bulgari, get consumer welcome very much. Asian countries mainly pursue product modeling and design culture, Korean ceramic jewelry focus on fashion style, ceramic color design expression. The exquisite and simple design of Japanese ceramic jewelry is inseparable from the Japanese tradition of paying attention to design details. Is ceramic power in our country, the meaning of English in a foreign country in China is the porcelain, Chinese porcelain, disks, etc are some famous reputation in the world, but the development of ceramic jewelry has a lot of problems: first, the ceramic jewelry in China started late, at present did not form scale and the development of the brand, the fewer engaged in ceramic jewelry designer; Secondly, China's ceramic jewelry design focuses on glaze design, which is only surface color design, and does not apply China's excellent traditional culture and ceramic culture to ceramic jewelry design. Finally, our people's consumption concept of ceramic jewelry has not been formed, do not understand the design culture of ceramic jewelry, pay attention to the value of gold and other precious metal materials preservation consumption. These are the problems in the development of China's ceramic jewelry. It can be seen that each country has its own ceramic design style and development plan, and each has its own characteristics, which lays an opportunity and challenge for the world exchange and development of ceramic jewelry.

The innovative development of drawing technology is to draw exquisite patterns on the ceramic accessories of jewelry. For example, traditional designs can be drawn or modern designs can be added to make ceramic jewelry more artistic. On the porcelain plate or porcelain beads to draw a good design, can also use modern design illustration, stick figure painting, graphic design, traditional Chinese painting and other forms of expression to express abstract, realistic, exaggerated deformation and other various art forms. Decoration is also very important for ceramic jewelry design. When people get jewelry, what they see first is the overall design of jewelry and the collocation of colors. However, the design of a new ceramic jewelry, to the overall decorative modeling and appearance texture repeated comparative study, through the use of a variety of colors and modeling collocation to achieve the desired effect.

Ceramic jewelry height and the pursuit of new design to meet the aesthetic demand of consumers nowadays, all need to continuously make improvement on the design, to design a comprehensive consideration, in the process of the product, the development strategy of development cannot leave the detailed in xi "four confidence" put forward by the general secretary, create cultural confidence, we need to make our country produced by the "made in China" into "creation", better realize the goal of "going out" strategy. This needs us to be in when doing specific design, want to establish "brand" strategic consciousness, such ability is beneficial to the better development of ceramic jewelry. Branding strategy is of great significance for establishing the development route of high-end positioning of ceramic jewelry, which requires designers to constantly accumulate more brand cultural knowledge, build the core direction, establish the design theme, form the design style, and develop the design according to China's cultural characteristics.

In the modern popular ceramic jewelry, the use of traditional Chinese elements or very popular. Traditional elements generally refer to all kinds of graphics appearing in the traditional Chinese culture, with distinct regional and national characteristics, such as dragon and phoenix patterns, auspicious clouds patterns, sea water patterns, etc. The application of these elements is not only ancient and elegant, but also has the cultural connotation of the Chinese nation. So in ornaments, the use of auspicious cloud pattern is more extensive. The pattern of auspicious clouds originated from the moire pattern in ancient China, which is a symbol of elevation and wishful thinking. Since ancient times, moire pattern has been deeply loved by people, and has been used in clothing, utensils and buildings. Because ceramic ornaments are generally small in size, so in order to be beautiful, the current handmade producers will combine the shape, color and composition of ceramic ornaments themselves needs, to improve the auspicious cloud decoration, inheritance, reference, development, rather than simply to copy or copy the traditional pattern. Whether hand-painted blue and white auspicious cloud pattern, or hand-carved auspicious cloud shape, in today's ceramic jewelry market is very classic. And the use of Chinese ink painting such as freehand flowers and birds, freehand landscape, freehand figures; For example, the use of plant flowers, such as lotus, peony, plum, chrysanthemum, bamboo, etc. There are Chinese opera elements, the use of Chinese knot and other elements. As long as it has Chinese traditional characteristics, representing the cultural connotation of the Chinese nation, designers will be respected and used.

Ceramic materials themselves have a lot of advantages. When designing and processing jewelry materials, it is necessary to carefully consider the material properties, make good use of the material properties, and combine them with the processing technology of ceramic materials. Ceramic processing technology includes: pile mud, billet, impression die, repair billet, water, painting billet, glaze, kiln, porcelain, repair and so on. Through engraving, hollowing out, embossing and other techniques on the embryo body, and also by means of clay grain technique, direct color collocation can be carried out through the mud, all of which are innovative designs through the processing technology. Ceramic jewelry mainly ceramics and ceramics is the art of mud and fire, the earth has the character such as shrinkage, weight, flexibility as well as the color after a China boast skillful, strength, abound change of texture and it any different characteristics of the material ", especially the enamel liquid, flexibility and its molding with high controllability, strong exploratory and experimental features, etc, on the one hand, the characteristics of ceramic materials has brought jewelry molding bound with difficulty, on the other hand ceramic material rheological property also brings ceramic jewelry forming a natural creativity, impact, and imagination, Or show rough, atmospheric, natural, earthy idiosyncratic, or show pure, lukewarm embellish, exquisite, clever, brought brand-new visual effect and simple sense to people.

Post-modern design elements are developed on the basis of traditional elements and are a disguised inheritance of rational rebellion against traditional elements. Most of the traditional elements are serious and inflexible, which will make people feel boring and bored. For the visual effect that pursues appeal, individual character, human feeling to wait unconventional and unorthodox, people also can combine a few different material to pledge, act the role of photograph of act the role of with pottery and porcelain undertakes adornment. For example hand chain of a string of beads, people can be united in wedlock wood bead, gem, metal products to wait with ceramic photograph union, make act the role of article is more diversiform on material qualitative combination, those who avoided pottery and porcelain is qualitative is onefold. Also have the collocation that combines with minority subject matter photograph, be like with pure manual miao embroidery, miao Yin, with Tibetan style deserve to act the role of such as day bead, bodhi child, sun month implement or all sorts of concise string is acted the role of wait for photograph to combine, these fittings color are gorgeous, have individual character beauty very with contemporary dress collocation and reveal ethical culture.

As the development of the society, all sorts of tide also renovate ceaselessly, the aesthetic appreciation that subsequently consumer also produces change ceaselessly, contemporary pottery and porcelain first adorn article also is able to develop quickly below intense competition, become the cosset of contemporary popularity. Modern ceramic jewelry patterns are mainly handmade, exquisite workmanship, unique personality, integrated with popular, fashionable, creative, traditional handmade, original culture and other characteristics, so that the wearing population is more young, diverse, fashionable and international. Therefore, modern ceramic jewelry is not only jewelry, but also a piece of craftsmanship arts and crafts, each piece of ceramic jewelry is a unique handmade art. With the development of the market, the development situation of modern ceramic jewelry pattern design is also unstoppable. The popular innovation of jewelry pattern is the inevitable product of the development of the new era to a certain stage. I believe that the development prospect of ceramic jewelry in the future will be better and better.

In a word, with the continuous spread and development of ceramic jewelry nowadays, designers of ceramic jewelry are also constantly pushing through the old and bringing forth the new, constantly seeking a balance between tradition and future, and embracing both classicism and modernity. Believe in not get in the future, ceramic act the role ofing will obtain bigger development space, more and more develop toward the direction of nationalization.

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martin9395 · 5 years

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Saffron Origins as well as Uses

It is actually been a long period of time given that seasoning has actually been actually taken into consideration a valued commodity. Nevertheless, when it is considered that a football field's worth of blooms is needed to create one extra pound of seasoning, it is actually far simpler to conceptualize its own value.

Saffron is actually just about worth its own weight in gold. Its raised requirement as well as sensitiveness to growing conditions has actually rendered this seasoning among the rarest, most popular products on the planet.

Saffron happens from the dried judgment of the saffron crocus blossom. As soon as dried out, it is actually typically used as a taste in Mediterranean foods as well as a fabric-coloring substance. It has also been made use of medicinally for 1000s of years through old civilizations. The word has connections along with the Arabic term as much, which means "yellow"; the dye discovered in the flavor is what offers numerous meals their distinct, yellowish coloring. The preference of saffron is actually illustrated as bitter along with a hay-like scent Best Saffron. saffronbest

Planting the plant is actually difficult, which causes its extremely higher rate. The min preconceptions are the only aspect of the blossom that generates the smell as well as flavor wanted for preparing food, that makes farming surprisingly complicated. In between 50,000-75,000 florals are actually demanded to create one extra pound of completely dry saffron, which ends up being an also direr condition taking into consideration the flowers' synchronised flowering; 40 hours of extreme labor is actually called for to cultivate a valuable volume of saffron in the course of the growing period. In Kashmir, among the very most prolific regions, manies thousand of planters do work in relays, continuously, to 2 weeks to earn a sizable volume of stigmas.

Indian, Arab, Iranian, Central Asian, European as well as Moroccan dishes are actually usually spiced along with saffron. Due to its harsh, hay-like top quality, the blossom prevails in cheeses, curries, boozes, meat foods and soups. In India as well as Spain, it is actually also a prominent spice for rice; the renowned Spanish food paella counts heavily on saffron. French food items fanatics can easily likewise find the taste in bouillabaisse, which is actually a fiery fish goulash coming from Marseilles

The medical use of the flower is likewise highly-celebrated in lots of cultures. In the course of middle ages times, Europeans made use of saffron to address respiratory system infections like bronchial asthma, smallpox as well as acute rhinitis. Early Egyptians, one of the major proponents of the flavor, used it as an aphrodisiac and stimulant to war dysentery. In modern-day times, saffron is used as an anticarcinogenic, or even cancer-suppressing, substance. Extract from the flavor has actually additionally been actually recognized to postpone ascites cyst growth. Ultimately, it is made use of commonly as an antioxidant- An anti-aging solution understood to stop nerve damages and also tissue wear and tear Best Saffron.

The floral's strengths have been actually used widely for material color, specifically in such nations as China and also India. Despite the fact that its vulnerability as a coloring broker leads as quick-fading posts, the color is still preferred for its own vibrant-orange high quality. Even more strengths incorporated are going to make a dazzling shade of reddish. Since of the high price and also difficult technique of farming, saffron-dyed garments is actually something of a luxury, commonly scheduled for aristocracy and classy. The vermilion and ochre colors of robes put on by Hindu and also Buddhist priests are actually produced through saffron dye. In Europe, the flavor is actually made use of in aromatic oil referred to as crocinum, which is actually used in wine and also sky fresheners.

What Is Saffron?

Saffron is a grandiose seasoning that is actually made use of to flavor a variety of recipes, a lot of often rice. It provides a distinctly abundant gold yellow hue that colors meals cooked using this flavor as well as it is additionally utilized to dye apparel as well as bathrobes, significantly Buddhist abbots bathrobes, though it is hardly used for this purpose nowadays due to the fact that of its own awesome market value on the competitive market Saffron.

A pound of saffron may simply retrieve rates beyond $5000 for the finest. It is actually the gold of spices as well as is actually certainly not effortlessly gotten. This spice originates from the preconceptions of the floral Crocus Sativus. Merely 3 stigmas are actually produced every plant as well as they must be collected within two full weeks of showing up. It takes a soccer field sized quantity of property to generate one pound of this unusual spice. To collect enough preconceptions of the vegetation workers must be actually hired on 24 hour turning changes to become able to make sufficient of the seasoning in the short home window of your time that is may be harvested. Chemically this flavor possesses over 150 fragrance creating compounds though 10% of its own mass consists of alpha-crocin which the carotenoid pigment that give the seasoning its shade that is actually effortlessly imparted to rice and various other foods. Very little is actually needed to have to help make a multicolored rice recipe, yet the seasoning has to be actually secured coming from illumination as well as oxidizing representatives such as sky to preserve its taste.

This opulent flavor has actually been grown for over 3,000 years as well as is pointed out in a terrific wide array of botanical endorsements from recent and also even the Hebrew scriptures, the Talmud. It has in the past been utilized to address sickness, as a pigment as well as has actually been actually made use of for incense. Tracks of wild saffron pigment have actually been discovered in prehistoric pictures thought to be actually nearly 50,000 years old. Alexander the Great utilized this seasoning in healing bathtubs replicated from Persian showers that eventually influenced Greek baths of the amount of time Saffron.

Saffron: World's Most Expensive Spice

Saffron is a really pricey spice originated from the floral of saffron crocus. It belongs to crocus placed in household Iridaceae as well as is actually clinically referred to as Crocus sativus. The blossom may be differentiated through 3 stigmas present at the distal end of each carpel. The stems signing up with the preconceptions are actually called types. The judgments are dried out and are incredibly preferred in food preparation as a flavoring and colouring agent. Saffron is belonging to Southwest Asia and also is possibly the absolute most expensive seasoning of the planet through significance. It is harsh in taste and also has an iodoform like scent. This scent is due to the presence of particular chemicals namely picrocrocin and also safranal. A carotenoid dye specifically crocin is actually liable for presenting golden-yellow shade to dishes when saffron is actually used as a colouring solution Iran

Saffron derives its own name from a Latin phrase meaning yellowish. The domesticated saffron crocus is a seasonal flowering vegetation unfamiliar in untamed. The vegetation is understood to bloom in autumn. It is actually a sterilized triploid kind expanding in far eastern Mediterranean yet strongly believed to have come from Central Asia. C. cartwrightianus is actually a wide array that has actually been actually built through synthetic variety by outrageous plant producers. The vegetation is clean and sterile as well as thereby, stops working to generate worthwhile seeds. Plants require individual help to lug out their recreation. Corms are actually used for developing a brand new vegetation. A corm endures for one time as well as upon department it yields as much as ten cormlets which create brand-new plants. Bulbs are actually small drops that action 4.5 centimeters in size.

In the spring period the vegetation produces about 5-11 narrow and vertically environment-friendly leaves each evaluating 40 centimeters in span. In autumn the vegetation offers violet weeds. In October flowering scalps show up and also they range in colour from light soft-hued shade of lavender to a darker as well as even more striated mauve. Throughout the blooming time the plant achieves a height of 30 centimeters. 3 prolonged designs appear coming from each blossom. Each later obtains cancelled in to a crimson coloured judgment evaluating 25-30 mm in size. Iran.

Saffron plants are actually known to allow winter months freezes as much as -10 ° C as well as very quick time periods of snow cover. Irrigation is actually called for otherwise expanded in moist weather like Kashmir wher the mean precipitations is 1,000-1,500 mm. spring rains and drier summer seasons are actually quite necessary for plant growth. They are actually responsible to be wrecked through digging actions of bunnies, rats, and birds. Nematodes, fallen leave rusts, and bulb rot. They are grown in hilly style. In Northern Hemisphere growing is typically carried out if June. The vegetations like friable, loose, low-density, well-watered, and also well-drained clay-calcareous dirts with higher organic information. Around 150 blossoms rarely produce 1 gram of saffron. Saffron includes greater than 150 unstable as well as fragrance yielding chemical compounds. It additionally bears non-volatile carotenoids like zeaxanthin, lycopene, as well as different?- and?-carotenes. The golden yellowish- colour of saffron is due to the visibility of?-crocin. This crocin in actual conditions is actually trans-crocetin di-(?-D-gentiobiosyl) ester. Crocins are actually hydrophilic carotenoids that are actually either monoglycosyl or diglycosyl polyene esters of crocetin. crocetin is actually a conjugated polyene dicarboxylic acid that is hydrophobic, and also thus oil-soluble. When crocetin is actually esterified with two water-soluble gentiobioses, an item is constituted that is water-soluble.?-crocin is actually liable for helping make 10% of completely dry mass of saffron. The pair of esterified gentiobioses create?-crocin best for colouring water-based (non-fatty) foods items such as rice foods.

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zealoustalestrawberry-blog · 6 years

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Yoyos are the very best gift you can get your children this christmas, or for their birthday

Yo-yo (also spelled yoyo) is a toy consisting of an axle linked to two disks, and a string looped around the axle. It has some similarities to a slender spool. Yo-yo is performed by holding the free finish of the string acknowledged as the handle (by inserting 1 finger—usually the center or index finger—into a slip knot) allowing gravity (or the power of a toss and gravity) to spin the yo-yo and unwind the string (equivalent to how a pullstring operates). The player then allows the yo-yo to wind itself back to the player's hand, exploiting its spin (and the related rotational power). This is frequently known as "yo-yoing". Yo-yo was very first manufactured popular in the 1920s, yo-yoing stays a common pastime of numerous generations and cultures. It was recognized in historical Greece, but it is often linked with Japanese tradition, due to the fact it is really well-known in Japan. The World Yo-Yo Contest has traditionally been dominated by the Japanese—taking home 71 Entire world Titles in the previous 22 a long time. Shinji Saito continues to be the most adorned yo-yoer of all-time with thirteen World Titles. Takeshi Matsuura is second with six. In the simplest play, the string is supposed to be wound on the spool by hand The yo-yo is thrown downwards, hits the conclude of the string, then winds up the string towards the hand, and ultimately the yo-yo is grabbed, prepared to be thrown yet again. One of the most basic methods is called the sleeper, exactly where the yo-yo spins at the stop of the string for a obvious quantity of time before returning to the hand. A lot of yo-yo tips are accomplished whilst the yo-yo is mentioned to be sleeping. A single of the most popular tips on the yo-yo is "stroll the pet".[quotation needed] This is carried out by throwing a sturdy sleeper and allowing the yo-yo to roll across the floor, just before tugging it back to the hand. English historic names for the yo-yo consist of bandalore (from French) and quiz. French historic conditions consist of bandalore, incroyable, de Coblenz, emigrette, and joujou de Normandie (joujou which means tiny toy). A Greek vase portray from 500 BC displays a boy actively playing with a yo-yo (see right). Greek data from the period of time describe toys produced out of wood, metallic, or painted terra cotta (fired clay). The terra cotta disks have been utilized to ceremonially provide the toys of youth to specific gods when a child came of age—discs of other materials have been utilised for actual perform. Beginning of the present day yo-yo Following the yo-yo was launched to the United States, it distribute to Mexico—a pile of handmade wooden Mexican yo-yos is pictured In 1928, Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant to the United States, opened the Yo-yo Production Firm in Santa Barbara, California. The business started with a dozen handmade toys by November 1929, Flores was working two further factories in Los Angeles and Hollywood, which altogether utilized 600 workers and made 300,000 models day-to-day. The principal distinction amongst the Filipino design and style popularized by Flores and far more primitive yo-yos is in the way the yo-yo is strung. In older (and some remaining low-cost) yo-yo designs, the string is tied to the axle employing a knot. With this method, the yo-yo just goes back again-and-forth it returns very easily, but it is not possible to make it sleep. In Flores's design, one particular constant piece of string, double the preferred length, is twisted about one thing to make a loop at one particular conclude which is equipped around the axle. Also termed a looped slip-string, this seemingly small modification enables for a significantly higher selection and sophistication of movement, many thanks to increased steadiness and suspension of motion throughout free spin. Soon thereafter (c. 1929), an entrepreneur named Donald F. Duncan regarded the possible of this new fad and purchased the Flores yo-yo Corporation and all its belongings, which includes the Flores name, which was transferred to the new organization in 1932. The name "Yo-yo" was registered in 1932 as a trademark by Sam Dubiner in Vancouver, Canada[six] and Harvey Lowe gained the 1st World Yo-Yo Contest in London, England. In 1932, Swedish Kalmartrissan yo-yos started to be made as properly. In 1946, the Duncan Toys Business opened a yo-yo factory in Luck, Wisconsin. The Duncan yo-yo was inducted into the National Toy Corridor of Fame at The Powerful in Rochester, New York, in 1999. 1960s resurgence Declining income soon after the Next Planet War prompted Duncan to start a comeback campaign for his trademarked "Yo-Yo" in 1962 with a series of tv ads. In a trademark case in 1965, a federal court's appeals ruled in favor of the Royal Tops Business, identifying that yo-yo experienced turn out to be a element of typical speech and that Duncan no more time experienced exclusive legal rights to the expression. As a result of the costs incurred by this lawful struggle as effectively as other financial pressures, the Duncan family members bought the company title and associated logos in 1968 to Flambeau, Inc, who experienced produced Duncan's plastic versions considering that 1955.[citation essential] As of 2014, Flambeau Plastics ongoing to run the organization. The Entire world Yo-Yo Contest was at first held each 12 months in Orlando, Florida, and was hosted by YoYoGuy.com throughout early August or late July.[twelve] Nonetheless, in 2014, the World Yo-Yo Contest was held in Prague, Czech Republic, which was the very first time the contest was held outside of North America. The 2015 Contest took area in Tokyo, Japan, and the 2016 Contest took location in Cleveland, Ohio. The 2017 Contest will just take spot in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the 2018 Contest will just take area in Shanghai, China. The World Yo-Yo Contest will take the winners from national yo-yo contests close to the entire world and pits them from each and every other. The eleven-time, double-handed globe winner Shinji Saito is Japanese.[13] Countries such as the United States, Brazil, Japan and the United kingdom maintain competitions at the nationwide and regional amounts. In addition, national yo-yo contests, with out regionals, are held each and every 12 months by Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, France, Germany, Switzerland, The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Australia. In Europe, the European championship is usually held in Prague in the Czech Republic, although in 2015 it was held in Kraków, Poland. 'EYYC', as it is colloquially acknowledged, is the largest contest exterior of The united states, and attracts in rivals and spectators from all over the world. The 2016 European Winner is Tal Mordoch, who is from Israel. The Tv Instances globe yo-yo championship was held in the United Kingdom in 1974, with heats across the United Kingdom and a ultimate in London in 1975 the championship was sponsored by the Louis Marx toy company with the 'Lumar' model of yo-yo. The competition was judged by a celeb panel in each city and also Lumar demonstrator and European yo-yo winner Don Robertson. The championship was not repeated. The youngest winners of the World YoYo contest are John Narum of the United States, who received it in 2005, and Takeshi Matsuura, who also received the 5A division at the age of eleven in 2008. Mastuura went on to win the title in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016, while Narum came in 2nd numerous instances but by no means received the title once more. Contest divisions There are 6 yo-yo divisions to contend in: 1A-The player employs a long sleeping yo-yo to carry out string methods which usually demand the manipulation of the string. Presently the most well-liked division, with the 1A final usually currently being held as the last celebration of a contest. 2A-The player makes use of two yo-yos concurrently to execute reciprocating or looping tips. This tends to be the most visually entertaining style with some gamers incorporating acrobatics into their routines. 3A-The player makes use of two prolonged spinning yo-yos, 1 tied to every single hand to complete tips that require manipulation of the string. 4A-The player employs an offstring yo-yo, often releasing the yo-yo into the air and making an attempt to capture it on the string. 5A-The participant employs a yo-yo with a counterweight on the other end of the string rather than possessing it connected to a finger. AP-This is the Inventive Efficiency division, where a yo-yoer might use any sort of yo-yo or any other prop in buy to perform a freestyle. Competition typically bring a amount of yo-yos to the functionality phase with them to let for mid-routine replacements in the circumstance of knots/jams (frequent with string methods), string breakage (frequent with looping tricks), or drops (frequent with offstring tips). Traditional designs Yo-yo bodies come in a amount of kind elements or "silhouettes," every developed with particular rewards in thoughts. Nevertheless, there are a few popular configurations. Modified The modified form is a really well-liked design for looping style methods. This shape is also known as a flywheel or present day shape. It typically has a hollowed encounter (at times lined with paper or plastic) with further material remaining in the rim. The modified condition yo-yo is also utilized for string tricks simply because of the lengthy spin times owing to its condition. Butterfly Duncan launched its initial wood butterfly yo-yo. Wayne Lundberg, the inventor, was a single of the demonstrators.[seventeen] The butterfly appears a little bit like the divided halves of a standard yo-yo that have been reconnected again-to-back. The string hole is wider to make it less complicated to capture the yo-yo entire body on the string. Even though the butterfly condition is excellent for 'string tricks,' it is not good for 'looping' methods, because the winged shape of the body does not allow it to effortlessly flip even though looping. This shape is equivalent to a modest Diabolo, sometimes called a Chinese yo-yo. Modern day designs Practically all new modern day yo-yos have a shape that is shallow close to the bearing and then widens out toward the edges (equivalent to the unique butterfly layout). The location among the rims of the yo-yo which leads down the bearing is identified as the 'catch zone'. Even though there are quite a few different variations in layout, a whole lot of modern day shapes can be labeled in one particular of the pursuing types. V condition The V form is one of the most simple yo-yo designs. Starting with a low wall, shut to the bearing, it rises straight up and out to the edges, with no actions or other distortions. The catch zone resembles a steep V form, therefore the name. The V condition allows for a quite open catch zone that helps make landing the yo-yo on the string with accuracy a good deal less complicated. W form/stepped V The W condition, also identified as the 'stepped V', is when the walls of the yo-yo start shut to the bearing, as in the V condition, but as they transfer up and out towards the rim, they alter angle at one or a number of factors. This can permit for a more compact yoyo diameter with no the yo-yo having to be excessively vast. O form/natural and organic The O Form, also known as the 'organic' shape, uses curving partitions that curve outwards in the direction of the edges, related to the older patterns. https://bestgiftsforfriends.wordpress.com/ Natural and organic yo-yo's toughness is that they are usually really comfortable to keep. H shape The H shape features rims of the yo-yo that are noticeably pronounced into the capture zone. This style provides highest rim excess weight, and as a result optimum steadiness, despite the fact that this can appear at the expense of velocity. Bodyweight distribution Every single silhouette might have much more bodyweight distributed at both the heart of the yo-yo or the edge. More bodyweight toward the rim will make the yo-yo a lot more secure, meaning that it is significantly less probably to tilt in the course of engage in. The tradeoff is intensely rim weighted solitary-steel throws tend to play slower and heavier than far more middle weighted styles. Employing other metals in design can let a lot more bodyweight at the rims although even now trying to keep the general bodyweight down, which aids to give a yo-yo the ideal of both worlds. Yo-yos with a increased minute of inertia will have more angular momentum when spinning at a offered velocity, and thus will spin freely for a lengthier period of time. Most contemporary yo-yos are produced from a "get-aside" layout, developed to be taken simply aside and reassembled by the participant. This design and style was 1st designed by Tom Kuhn.[citation necessary] This enables the replacement of yo-yo components, which includes the string, renewable friction resources, or even trans-axle elements. In order to increase spin times, added weight was additional to the outermost part of the yo-yo. The very first to do this was Dale Oliver (Spintastics Ability Toys, Inc) with the addition of steel rings when he brought out the Tigershark yo-yo early in 1998.[quotation necessary] Some get-apart types enable the player to reconfigure the yo-yo's halves. In the Tom Kuhn No Jive three-In-one, the halves might be hooked up in a few distinct configurations, ensuing in a classic, butterfly, or "pagoda" silhouette. In the Yo-yo Factory FlyMaster, the body has two different "shells" to convert to and from an off-string yo-yo. Some yo-yos have a response method implemented in their human body, which betters the ability of the yo-yo to return to the user's hand. The return technique is usually positioned about the axle in the inside of the yo-yo. Some take-aside yo-yos have replaceable return methods. An additional innovation to the yo-yo is the potential to alter the hole in between the two halves of the yo-yo, in order to enhance or lower reaction. In most styles, this is attained by twisting the yo-yo halves, but some types (such as the Tom Kuhn Silver Bullet) can be disassembled for adjustment without twisting. This next choice eradicates the likelihood of the yo-yo coming out of adjustment in the course of engage in. John Jerome McAvoy, Jr. was awarded patents for the gap-adjustable yo-yo: patent #5389029 on February 14, 1995, and #6066024 on Could 23, 2000.[18][19] In 1998, HSPIN introduced the Handquake series of yo-yos, which sported an adjustable hole by utilizing shims of .1-.5mm thickness. By adding or getting rid of shims, the gap could be widened or shrunk by +/- 1mm. Harry Baier (creator of the "Mondial" yo-yo) and the Flambeau Merchandise Firm (proprietor of Duncan) had been awarded patent #6162109 on December 19, 2000 for a hole-adjustable yo-yo which has discrete positions for certain hole widths. This patent was initial carried out in the CameYo Mondial ahead of being acquired by Duncan.[20] YoYoFactory's product line of Speed Dial yo-yo's characteristic "Entirely Adjustable Starburst Technology" which makes it possible for the gap to be altered employing a dial on the yo-yo. This permits for a more discrete reaction placing that stays the identical soon after the yo-yo is taken apart and place back together. The basic innovation considering that the 1990s is the transaxle, a program exactly where the string is not straight connected to the axle that connects the two halves of the yo-yo. Fixed axle yo-yos are represented by the unique yo-yo style popularized in the initial 50 % of the 20th century, in which the axle is right linked to the string and halves of the yo-yo entire body. In buy to enable the throwing of a "sleeper", the participant have to make certain the string is not wound as well tightly around the axle due to the fact it must freely spin in get to achieve this move. Yo-yos made for "looping" methods have a tendency to be mounted-axle yo-yos. Some a lot more unique fastened-axle yo-yos have axles produced from low-friction supplies such as ceramic alloys—this enables for simpler "sleeping," which is crucial for string tricks. The majority of trick yo-yos offered are bearing transaxle yo-yos. In these transaxle yo-yos the string is not related to the axle immediately, but rather it is wrapped about a ballrace bearing. The bearing, in switch, surrounds the correct axle of the yo-yo. In this way, the physique of the yo-yo may possibly spin freely about the string's level of contact. There are transaxle methods which do not use a ball bearing, this kind of as the Duncan ProFire and Yomega Fireball. These use a low-friction steel or plastic collar around the axle. The clutch transaxle, innovated by Yomega with the Yomega Mind, is a transaxle that can be engaged or disengaged. the Yomega Mind is a centrifugal clutch transaxle-- when spinning at a sufficiently higher speed, counterweights inside of the yo-yo body disengage the axle, instantly permitting the yo-yo to "snooze." Conversely, when the velocity slows beneath the threshold, the yo-yo will return instantly. Other clutch transaxles feature a guide swap which can have interaction or disengage the axle. Hubstacks Hubstacks are bearings included to the hub (the outdoors) of a yo-yo and coated with some form of side cap to enable the yo-yo entire body to be held although it spins. With the facet cap bearing, the operator can maintain the yo-yo in many diverse planes and carry out various styles of tricks which are challenging (or unattainable in some circumstances) to be executed with standard yo-yos. These configurations could be called hubstacks, bearing caps, synergy caps, or jimmy hats. Bodily system When the yo-yo is very first unveiled, the throw gives it translational kinetic vitality. As the string unwinds, much of this strength is transformed into rotational kinetic vitality, triggering the yo-yo to spin speedily. As the yo-yo unwinds, it also gains some energy from gravity. Because the yo-yo has substantial rotational inertia, it can retailer sufficient vitality in its rotation to combat gravity all the way back up to the hand. The string winds in the reverse course upon the return of the yo-yo. If the string is linked to the shaft with a loop, there could not be enough friction to defeat gravity and commence winding the string. In this circumstance, the yo-yo will continue to spin at the finish of the string alternatively of returning. Nevertheless, if the yo-yo is jerked somewhat, it will enter cost-free fall for a transient minute, and the string's friction gets the most substantial pressure on the yo-yo. This makes it possible for the slack string to bind, and the energy from the yo-yo's rotation finishes the relaxation of the return. Patents have been issued to produce a lot more challenging mechanisms to enable tension control and an adjustable system.

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