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Grey matter

Grey matter, or brain matter in American English, is a major component of the central nervous system, consisting of neuronal cell bodies, neuropil (dendrites and unmyelinated axons), glial cells (astrocytes and oligodendrocytes), synapses, and capillaries. Grey matter is distinguished from white matter in that it contains numerous cell bodies and relatively few myelinated axons, while white matter contains relatively few cell bodies and is composed chiefly of long-range myelinated axons. The colour difference arises mainly from the whiteness of myelin. In living tissue, grey matter actually has a very light grey colour with yellowish or pinkish hues, which come from capillary blood vessels and neuronal cell bodies.

Structure
Grey matter refers to unmyelinated neurons and other cells of the central nervous system. It is present in the brain, brainstem and cerebellum, and present throughout the spinal cord.

Grey matter is distributed at the surface of the cerebral hemispheres (cerebral cortex) and of the cerebellum (cerebellar cortex), as well as in the depths of the cerebrum (the thalamus; hypothalamus; subthalamus, basal ganglia – putamen, globus pallidus and nucleus accumbens; as well as the septal nuclei), cerebellum (deep cerebellar nuclei – the dentate nuclei, globose nucleus, emboliform nucleus, and fastigial nucleus), and brainstem (the substantia nigra, red nucleus, olivary nuclei, and cranial nerve nuclei).

Grey matter in the spinal cord is known as the grey column which travels down the spinal cord distributed in three grey columns that are presented in an "H" shape. The forward-facing column is the anterior grey column, the rear-facing one is the posterior grey column and the interlinking one is the lateral grey column. The grey matter on the left and right side is connected by the grey commissure. The grey matter in the spinal cord consists of interneurons, as well as the cell bodies of projection neurons.

Grey matter undergoes development and growth throughout childhood and adolescence. Recent studies using cross-sectional neuroimaging have shown that by around the age of 8 the volume of grey matter begins to decrease. However, the density of grey matter appears to increase as a child develops into early adulthood. Males tend to exhibit grey matter of increased volume but lower density than that of females.

Function
Grey matter contains most of the brain's neuronal cell bodies. The grey matter includes regions of the brain involved in muscle control, and sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision-making, and self-control.

The grey matter in the spinal cord is split into three grey columns:
 * The anterior grey column contains motor neurons. These synapse with interneurons and the axons of cells that have travelled down the pyramidal tract. These cells are responsible for the movement of muscles.
 * The posterior grey column contains the points where sensory neurons synapse. These receive sensory information from the body, including fine touch, proprioception, and vibration. This information is sent from receptors of the skin, bones, and joints through sensory neurons whose cell bodies lie in the dorsal root ganglion. This information is then transmitted in axons up the spinal cord in spinal tracts, including the dorsal column-medial lemniscus tract and the spinothalamic tract.
 * The lateral grey column is the third column of the spinal cord.

The grey matter of the spinal cord can be divided into different layers, called Rexed laminae. These describe, in general, the purpose of the cells within the grey matter of the spinal cord at a particular location.

Clinical significance
High alcohol consumption has been correlated with significant reductions in grey matter volume. Short-term cannabis use (30 days) is not correlated with changes in white or grey matter. However, several cross-sectional studies have shown that repeated long-term cannabis use is associated with smaller grey matter volumes in the hippocampus, amygdala, medial temporal cortex, and prefrontal cortex, with increased grey matter volume in the cerebellum. Long-term cannabis use is also associated with alterations in white matter integrity in an age-dependent manner, with heavy cannabis use during adolescence and early adulthood associated with the greatest amount of change.

Meditation has been shown to change grey matter structure.

Habitual playing of action video games has been reported to promote a reduction of grey matter in the hippocampus while 3D platformer games have been reported to increase grey matter in the hippocampus.

Women and men with equivalent IQ scores have differing proportions of grey to white matter in cortical brain regions associated with intelligence.

Pregnancy renders substantial changes in brain structure, primarily reductions in grey matter volume in regions subserving social cognition. Grey matter reductions endure for at least 2 years post-pregnancy. The profile of brain changes is comparable to that taking place during adolescence, a hormonally similar transitional period of life.

Etymology
In the current edition of the official Latin nomenclature, Terminologia Anatomica, substantia grisea is used for English grey matter. The adjective grisea for grey is however not attested in classical Latin. The adjective grisea is derived from the French word for grey, gris. Alternative designations like substantia cana and substantia cinerea are being used alternatively. The adjective cana, attested in classical Latin, can mean grey, or greyish white. The classical Latin cinerea means ash-coloured.

title: Grey matter


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User:Fnielsen

fnielsen is (me!) Finn Årup Nielsen, Lyngby, Denmark, - an engineer working with data science. I edit in Wikipedia, perform research on wikis and Wikipedia.

On Wikipedia and sister projects
I have been active on the English and Danish versions of Wikipedia, with the first English Wikipedia entry August 23 2002 and the first Danish February 11 2002.

Among the articles I have added to are non-negative matrix factorization, ratio distribution, intraclass correlation, Niels A. Lassen, John Lykoudis and 5-HTTLPR. My English edits have usually been related to my work. On the Danish Wikipedia I usually write articles that are not related to my work. I also take photos for Wikimedia Commons. Most photos have been of Copenhagen and suburbs.

(I have a sandbox as a subpage where I try to understand Wikipedia tables, templates, substitutions, transclusions and other technical details of Wikipedia.)

Community
I am a member of Wikimedia Denmark, and presently is a member of the board. I have been at Wikimania in Alexandria, Gdansk and London.

Tools
I have made a tool that converts a PubMed/MEDLINE identifier, PMID, to a cite journal template. As of 2008 it is available from

On the Toolserver I had a online visualization service called revvis. Enabled for the Danish Wikipedia, it shows the sequential collaboration network for a Wikipedia article.

The most recent Toolforge tools are Scholia, Wembedder, CVRminer and Ordia.

Article-by-author matrix factorization
I participated in WikiSym 2006 in Odense and had a short talk in the workshop about Wikipedia research organized by Jakob Voß and Angela Beesley. The slides used for the presentation are available from the department archive : Non-negative matrix factorization decomposed a article-by-author data matrix for identification of clusters of authors and articles.

Scientific citations in Wikipedia
In 2007 I looked at the outbound citations from Wikipedia (using Template:Cite journal) to scientific journals. Nature and Science were the most cited. I compared the number of citations with citation information from Journal Citation Reports of Thomson Scientific, and the correlation between the two sets of values was not bad, e.g., when a scientific journal had many citations it tended to also have many Wikipedia citations. An updated scatter plot for the July 2007 database dump is available.

I also tried to cluster scientific journals and Wikipedia articles and made a longitudinal comparison of the citation information. This is described in Clustering of scientific citations in Wikipedia.

The data set used for the clustering is available from the homepage and a couple of researcher have used it to test machine learning algorithms, see the references on Google Scholar.

Wiki for representing and computing with scientific data
I am experimenting with representing scientific data in a wiki-like environment. My first attempt was a spreadsheet link online service for personality genetics. It is available from:
 * http://neuro.imm.dtu.dk/cgi-bin/brede_wiki_personalitygenetics

I now mostly work with the "Brede Wiki".
 * http://neuro.imm.dtu.dk/wiki/

This MediaWiki-based wiki can represent spreadsheet-like data and meta-analysis is presently performed with an online script.

On Wikimania 2010 I tried to argue for a way to represent scientific data in Wikipedia: Wikipedia is not the sum of all human knowledge. I look forward to see how Wikidata can be used for such data.

Review of Wikipedia research
Since 2008 I have been writing a review on Wiki and Wikipedia research entitled Wikipedia research and tools: Review and comments. I now collaborate with fellow researchers (Chitu Okoli and others) on the Internet to summarize and review Wikipedia research. We presently have a long working paper entitled The people's encyclopedia under the gaze of the sages: a systematic review of scholarly research on Wikipedia, see at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2021326. We maintain the data for the review on a Semantic MediaWiki at http://wikilit.referata.com. The setup of this wiki was inspired by WikiPapers (http://wikipapers.referata.com) at and my Brede Wiki.

I have also written a popular science overview of Wikipedia research in Danish: Wikipedia - nørdernes sejr over vandalerne?.

Blog
I maintain blogs where I sometimes write posts relating to Wikipedia. These may be opinionated or related to my work. I was originally writing from Posterous, but as this is closed down Wikipedia posts from my blogs can be found here:
 * http://finnaarupnielsen.wordpress.com/tag/wikipedia/
 * http://fnielsen.tumblr.com/tagged/wikipedia (nothing here yet)

Examples of blog posts are:
 * Hunting down the undead ghost of classical conductor George Richter — the story about an article about a conductor that I added to Wikipedia, but later was deleted as it turned out that he was ficticious.
 * Sentiment analysis of Wikipedia pages on Danish politicians.

Links

 * "Blaming" tools:
 * WikiChanges
 * Hauptautoren de:Wikipedia:Hauptautoren
 * User edit counting:
 * "River" (Danish)
 * Overall statistics:
 * Wikichecker. User profiling
 * Xiong Changnian's Xiong's stats. Also makes some notes about user types.

 * User:fnielsen/Book:Music, example book

Conflict of Interest Statement
I am working or have been employed by: I have received grants from: I received gifts associated with:
 * Technical University of Denmark
 * Rigshospitalet
 * The Lundbeck foundation, - partial owner of Lundbeck.
 * Villum Foundation associated with VELUX.
 * Danish Research Councils.
 * American research councils.
 * Klovn
 * Frank Hvam
 * Packt

Reference
da:Bruger:fnielsen de:Benutzer:fnielsen

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Fnielsen


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Weasel

Weasels are mammals of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae. The genus Mustela includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets, and European mink. Members of this genus are small, active predators, with long and slender bodies and short legs. The family Mustelidae, or mustelids (which also includes badgers, otters, and wolverines), is often referred to as the "weasel family". In the UK, the term "weasel" usually refers to the smallest species, the least weasel (M. nivalis), the smallest carnivoran species.

Least weasels vary in length from 173 to 217 mm, females being smaller than the males, and usually have red or brown upper coats and white bellies; some populations of some species moult to a wholly white coat in winter. They have long, slender bodies, which enable them to follow their prey into burrows. Their tails may be from 34 to 52 mm long.

Weasels feed on small mammals and have from time to time been considered vermin because some species took poultry from farms or rabbits from commercial warrens. They do, on the other hand, eat large numbers of rodents. Their range spans Europe, North America, much of Asia and South America, and small areas in North Africa.

Terminology
The English word "weasel" was originally applied to one species of the genus, the European form of the least weasel (Mustela nivalis). This usage is retained in British English, where the name is also extended to cover several other small species of the genus. However, in technical discourse and in American usage, the term "weasel" can refer to any member of the genus, the genus as a whole, and even to members of the related genus Neogale. Of the 16 extant species currently classified in the genus Mustela, 10 have "weasel" in their common names. Among those that do not are the three species of ermine, the polecats, the ferret, and the European mink.

The American mink and the extinct sea mink were commonly included in this genus as Mustela vison and Mustela macrodon, respectively, but in 1999 they were moved to the genus Neovison. In 2021, both Neovison species, along with the long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata), Amazon weasel (Mustela africana) and Colombian weasel (Mustela felipei) were moved to the genus Neogale, as the clade containing these five species was found to be fully distinct from Mustela.

Taxonomy
The genus name Mustela comes from the Latin word for weasel combining the words mus meaning "mouse" and telum meaning "javelin" for its long body.

Species
The following information is according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System and MammalDiversity. 1 Europe and Northern Asia division excludes China.

Cultural meanings
Weasels have been assigned a variety of cultural meanings.

In Greek culture, a weasel near one's house is a sign of bad luck, even evil, "especially if there is in the household a girl about to be married", since the animal (based on its Greek etymology) was thought to be an unhappy bride who was transformed into a weasel and consequently delights in destroying wedding dresses. In Macedonia, however, weasels are generally seen as an omen of good fortune.

In early-modern Mecklenburg, Germany, amulets from weasels were deemed to have strong magic; the period between 15 August and 8 September was specifically designated for the killing of weasels.

In Montagne Noire (France), Ruthenia, and the early medieval culture of the Wends, weasels were not meant to be killed.

According to Daniel Defoe also, meeting a weasel is a bad omen. In English-speaking areas, weasel can be an insult, noun or verb, for someone regarded as sneaky, conniving or untrustworthy. Similarly, "weasel words" is a critical term for words or phrasing that are vague, misleading or equivocal.

Japanese superstitions

In Japan, weasels (鼬、鼬鼠) were seen as yōkai (causing strange occurrences). According to the encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue from the Edo period, a pack of weasels would cause conflagrations, and the cry of a weasel was considered a harbinger of misfortune. In the Niigata Prefecture, the sound of a pack of weasels making a rustle resembled six people hulling rice, so was called the "weasel's six-person mortar", and it was an omen for one's home to decline or flourish. It is said that when people chase after this sound, the sound stops.

They are also said to shapeshift like the fox (kitsune) or tanuki, and the nyūdō-bōzu told about in legends in the Tōhoku region and the Chūbu region are considered weasels in disguise, and they are also said to shapeshift into ōnyūdō and little monks.

In the collection of depictions Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by Sekien Toriyama, they were depicted under the title 鼬, but they were read not as "itachi", but rather as "ten", and "ten" were considered to be weasels that have reached one hundred years of age and became yōkai that possessed supernatural powers. Another theory is that when weasels reach several hundred years of age, they become mujina (Japanese badgers).

In Japanese, weasels are called iizuna or izuna (飯綱) and in the Tōhoku Region and Shinshu, it was believed that there were families that were able to use a certain practice to freely use kudagitsune as iizuna-tsukai or kitsune-mochi. It is said that Mount Iizuna, from the Nagano Prefecture, got its name due to how the gods gave people mastery of this technique from there.

According to the folklorist Mutō Tetsujō, "They are called izuna in the Senboku District, Akita Prefecture, and there are also the ichiko (itako) that use them." Also, in the Kitaakita District, they are called mōsuke (猛助), and they are feared as yōkai even more than foxes (kitsune).

In the Ainu language, ermines are called upas-čironnup or sáčiri, but since least weasels are also called sáčiri, Mashio Chiri surmised that the honorary title poy-sáčiri-kamuy (where poy means "small") refers to least weasels.

Kamaitachi
Kamaitachi is a phenomenon wherein one who is idle is suddenly injured as if his or her skin were cut by a scythe. In the past, this was thought to be "the deed of an invisible yōkai weasel". An alternate theory, asserts that kamaitachi is derived from kamae Tachi (構え太刀), so were not originally related to weasels at all.

title: Weasel


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Gulo

Gulo is a genus of carnivoran mammals in the family Mustelidae. It contains one extant species, the wolverine (G. gulo), as well as several extinct ones. Fossil evidence suggests that this genus appeared in North America and later spread to Eurasia during the Pliocene. Diagnostic traits include a strongly reduced P2, a robust P4 with three roots, and upper molars smaller than in other gulonines. Overall, the teeth are adapted for hypercarnivory.

title: Gulo


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Traffic (2000 film)

Traffic is a 2000 American crime drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Stephen Gaghan. It explores the illegal drug trade from several perspectives: users, enforcers, politicians, and traffickers. Their stories are edited together throughout the film, although some characters do not meet each other. The film is an adaptation of the 1989 British Channel 4 television series Traffik. The film stars an international ensemble cast, including Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Michael Douglas, Erika Christensen, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jacob Vargas, Tomas Milian, Topher Grace, James Brolin, Steven Bauer, and Benjamin Bratt. It features both English and Spanish-language dialogue.

20th Century Fox, the original financiers of the film, demanded that Harrison Ford play a leading role and that significant changes to the screenplay be made. Soderbergh refused and proposed the script to other major Hollywood studios; it was rejected because of the three-hour running time and the subject matter—Traffic is more of a political film than most Hollywood productions. USA Films, however, liked the project from the start and offered the filmmakers more money than Fox. Soderbergh operated the camera himself and adopted a distinctive color grade for each story line so that audiences could tell them apart.

Traffic was released in the United States on December 27, 2000, and received critical acclaim for Soderbergh's direction, the film's style, complexity, messages, and the cast's performances (particularly del Toro's). Traffic earned numerous awards, including four Oscars (from five nominations): Best Director for Steven Soderbergh, Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro, Best Adapted Screenplay for Stephen Gaghan and Best Film Editing for Stephen Mirrione. It was also a commercial success with a worldwide box-office revenue total of $207.5 million, well above its estimated $46 million budget.

In 2004, USA Network ran a miniseries—also called Traffic—based on the film and the 1989 British television series.

Mexico story line
In Mexico, police officers Javier Rodriguez and Manolo Sanchez stop a drug transport. General Salazar, a high-ranking Mexican official, interrupts their arrest to offer Javier a special assignment: apprehending Francisco Flores, a hitman for the Tijuana Cartel, headed by the Obregón brothers.

In Tijuana, under torture, Flores gives Salazar the names of Obregón cartel members, who are arrested. Javier and Salazar's efforts cripple the Obregóns' cocaine outfit, but Javier discovers that Salazar is a pawn of the rival Juárez Cartel; Salazar's anti-drug campaign is a charade to wipe out the Juárez Cartel's competitors.

Sanchez attempts to sell information about Salazar's true affiliation to the Drug Enforcement Administration, but Salazar has him murdered in the desert with Javier forced to watch. Javier arranges a deal with the DEA to testify against Salazar in exchange for electricity in his neighborhood to keep local children from being tempted by street gangs and crime. Salazar's secrets are revealed, and he is arrested.

Javier makes a statement to the media about the widespread corruption in the police force and army. Later, Javier watches as children play baseball at night in their new stadium.

Wakefield story line
Robert Wakefield, a conservative Ohio judge, is appointed to head the President's Office of National Drug Control Policy as drug czar, though he is warned that the War on Drugs is unwinnable. Meanwhile, Robert's teenage daughter Caroline has been using cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin, developing a drug addiction after her boyfriend Seth introduces her to freebasing. Caroline, Seth, and their friend Vanessa are arrested when they try to dump an overdosing fellow student at a hospital. Robert and his wife Barbara struggle to deal with Caroline's addiction, which Barbara has secretly known about for months.

Robert finds himself caught between his demanding new position and difficult family life. Visiting Mexico, he is encouraged by Salazar's successful efforts in hurting the Obregón brothers. Returning to Ohio, Robert learns that Caroline has run away to Cincinnati after stealing money from her parents to pay for drugs.

Dragging Seth along, Robert searches Cincinnati for his daughter. After a drug dealer who is prostituting Caroline refuses to reveal her whereabouts, Robert breaks into a seedy hotel room and finds a semi-conscious Caroline in the company of an older man. In Washington, D.C. to present a "10-point plan" to win the War on Drugs, Robert falters halfway through the speech, and tells the press that the War on Drugs implies a war on one's own family, which he cannot endorse. Later, Robert and Barbara attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting with Caroline, telling the other attendees that they are "here to listen".

Ayala/DEA story line
In San Diego, an undercover DEA investigation led by Montel Gordon and Ray Castro leads to the arrest of Eduardo Ruiz, a high-stakes dealer posing as a fisherman. Ruiz gives up his boss, drug lord Carl Ayala, the Obregóns' biggest distributor in the United States. Ayala is indicted by a tough prosecutor, hand-selected by Robert Wakefield to send a message to the cartels.

As Ayala's trial begins, his pregnant wife Helena learns of her husband's true profession from his associate, Arnie Metzger. Facing the prospect of life imprisonment for her husband and death threats against her child, Helena hires Flores to assassinate Ruiz and end the trial nolle prosequi. Flores plants a car bomb, but is killed by a sniper in retaliation for his cooperation with General Salazar, and the bomb meant to kill Ruiz instead kills Agent Castro.

Knowing Ruiz will soon testify, Helena makes a deal with Juan Obregón, who forgives the Ayala family's debt and has Ruiz poisoned. Ayala is released, much to Gordon's anger, and Ayala deduces that Metzger accepted $3 million to inform on Ruiz to the FBI and facilitate Ayala's downfall; Metzger is later visited by armed men. Soon after Ayala's release, Gordon bursts into his homecoming celebration and is forced out. Having planted a listening device under Ayala's desk, Gordon smiles as he walks away.

Relationship to actual events
Some aspects of the plotline are based on actual people and events:
 * The character General Arturo Salazar is closely modeled after Mexican General Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, who was secretly on the payroll of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, head of the Juarez Cartel.
 * The character Porfirio Madrigal is modeled after Fuentes.
 * The Obregón brothers are modeled after the Tijuana Cartel's Arellano Félix brothers.

At one point in the film, an El Paso Intelligence Center agent tells Robert his position, official in charge of drug control, doesn't exist in Mexico. As noted in the original script, a Director of the Instituto Nacional para el Combate a las Drogas was created by the Attorney General of Mexico in 1996.

Development
Steven Soderbergh had been interested in making a film about the drug wars for some time but did not want to make one about addicts. Producer Laura Bickford obtained the rights to the British television miniseries Traffik (1989) and liked its structure. Soderbergh, who had seen the miniseries in 1990, started looking for a screenwriter to adapt it into a film. They read a script by Stephen Gaghan called Havoc, about upper-class white kids in Palisades High School doing drugs and getting involved with gangs. Soderbergh approached Gaghan to work on his film but found he was already developing a film about drugs for producer/director Edward Zwick. Bickford and Soderbergh approached Zwick, who agreed to merge the two projects and come aboard as a producer.

Traffic was originally going to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, but it was put into turnaround unless actor Harrison Ford agreed to star. Soderbergh began shopping the film to other studios, but when Ford suddenly showed interest in Traffic, Fox's interest in the film was renewed; the studio took it out of turnaround. Fox CEO Bill Mechanic championed the film, but he departed from the studio by the time the first draft was finished. It went back into turnaround. Mechanic had also wanted to make some changes to the script, but Soderbergh disagreed and decided to shop the film to other major studios. They all turned him down because they were not confident in the prospects of a three-hour film about drugs, according to Gaghan. USA Films, however, had wanted to take on the movie from the first time Soderbergh approached them. They provided the filmmakers with a $46 million budget, a considerable increase from the $25 million which Fox offered.

Screenplay
Soderbergh had "conceptual discussions" with Gaghan while he was shooting The Limey in October 1998; they finished the outline before he went off to shoot Erin Brockovich. After Soderbergh was finished with that film, Gaghan had written a first draft in six weeks that was 165 pages long. After the film was approved for production, Soderbergh and Gaghan met two separate times for three days to reformat the script. The draft they shot had 163 pages with 135 speaking parts and featured seven cities. The film shortens the story line of the original miniseries; a significant character arc of a farmer is taken out, and the Pakistani plotline is replaced with one set in Mexico.

Casting
Harrison Ford was initially considered for the role of Robert Wakefield in January 2000 but would have had to take a significant cut in his usual $20 million salary. Ford met with Soderbergh to flesh out the character. Gaghan agreed to rework the role, adding several scenes to the screenplay. On February 20, Ford turned down the role, and the filmmakers brought it back to Michael Douglas, who had turned down an earlier draft. He liked the changes and agreed to star, which helped greenlight the project. Gaghan believes Ford turned down the role because he wanted to "reconnect with his action fans".

The filmmakers sent out letters to many politicians, both Democrat and Republican, asking them to make cameo appearances in the film. Several of the scenes had already been shot using actors in these roles, but the filmmakers went back and reshot those scenes when real politicians agreed to be in the film. Those who agreed, including U.S. Senators Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Orrin Hatch, Charles Grassley, and Don Nickles, and Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, were filmed in a scene that was entirely improvised.

Pre-production
The project was obtained from Fox by Initial Entertainment Group and was sold to USA Films by IEG for North American rights only. Steven Soderbergh never approached USA Films, and Initial Entertainment Group fully funded the film.

After Fox dropped the film in early 2000 and before USA Films expressed interest, Soderbergh paid for pre-production with his own money. USA Films agreed to give him the final cut on Traffic and also agreed to his term that all the Mexican characters would speak Spanish while talking to each other. This meant that almost all of Benicio del Toro's dialogue would be subtitled. Once the studio realized this, they suggested that his scenes be shot in English and Spanish, but Soderbergh and del Toro rejected the suggestion. Del Toro, a native of Puerto Rico, was worried that another actor would be brought in and re-record his dialogue in English after he had worked hard to master Mexican inflections and improve his Spanish vocabulary. Del Toro remembers, "Can you imagine? You do the whole movie, bust your butt to get it as realistic as possible, and someone dubs your voice? I said, 'No way. Over my dead body.' Steven was like, 'Don't worry. It's not gonna happen.'" The director fought for subtitles for the Mexico scenes, arguing that if the characters did not speak Spanish, the film would have no integrity and would not convincingly portray what he described as the "impenetrability of another culture".

The filmmakers went to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and U.S. Customs early on with the script; they told them that they were trying to present as detailed and accurate a picture of the current drug war as possible. The DEA and Customs pointed out inaccuracies in the script. In addition, they gave the production team access to the border checkpoint to Mexico, as shown in the film during the scene in which Wakefield and his people talk with border officials. Despite the assistance, the DEA did not try to influence the script's content. Soderbergh said Traffic had influences from the films of Richard Lester and Jean-Luc Godard. He also spent time analyzing The Battle of Algiers and Z, which, according to the director, had the feeling that the footage was "caught" and not staged. Another inspiration was Alan J. Pakula's film All the President's Men because of its ability to tackle serious issues while being entertaining. In the opening credits of his film, Soderbergh tried to replicate the typeface from All the President's Men and the placement on-screen at the bottom left-hand corner. Analyzing this film helped the director deal with the large cast and working in many different locations for Traffic.

Principal photography
Half of the first day's footage came out overexposed and unusable. Before the financiers or studio bosses knew about the problem, Soderbergh was already doing reshoots. The insurers made him agree that any further mishaps resulting in additional filming would come from the director's pocket. Soderbergh shot in various cities in California, Ohio, and Texas, on a 54-day schedule and came in $2 million under budget. The director acted as his cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter Andrews and operated the camera himself to "get as close to the movie as I can" and to eliminate the distance between the actors and himself. Soderbergh drew inspiration from the cinema verite style of Ken Loach's films, studying the framing of scenes, the distance of the camera to the actors, lens length, and the tightness of eyelines depending on the position of a character. Soderbergh remembers, "I noticed that there's a space that's inviolate, that if you get within something, you cross the edge into a more theatrical aesthetic as opposed to a documentary aesthetic". Most of the day was spent shooting because a lot of the film was shot with available light.

For the hand-held camera footage, Soderbergh used Panavision Millennium XLs that were smaller and lighter than previous cameras and allowed him to move freely. He adopted a distinctive look for each to tell the three stories apart. For Robert Wakefield's story, Soderbergh used tungsten film with no filter for a cold, monochrome blue feel. For Helena Ayala's story, Soderbergh used diffusion filters, flashing the film and overexposing it for a warmer feel. For Javier Rodriguez's story, the director used tobacco filters and a 45-degree shutter angle whenever possible to produce a strobe-like sharp feeling. Then, he took the entire film through an Ektachrome step, which increased the contrast and grain significantly. He wanted different looks for each story because the audience had to keep track of many characters and absorb a lot of information, and he did not want them to have to figure out which story they were watching.

Benicio del Toro had significant input into certain parts of the film; for example, he suggested a more straightforward, concise way of depicting his character kidnapping Francisco Flores that Soderbergh ended up using. The director cut a scene from the screenplay in which Robert Wakefield smokes crack after finding it in his daughter's bedroom. After rehearsing this scene with the actors, he felt that the character would not do it; after consulting with Gaghan, the screenwriter agreed, and the filmmakers cut the scene shortly before it was scheduled to be shot.

Balboa Park, downtown San Diego and La Jolla were utilized as the environment for the film.

Post-production
The first cut of Traffic ran three hours and ten minutes. Soderbergh cut it to two hours and twenty minutes. Early on, there were concerns that the film might get an NC-17 rating, and he was prepared to release it with that rating, but the MPAA gave it an R.

Home media
In the United States, the film was released on DVD on May 28, 2002, by The Criterion Collection. In Australia, Traffic was released on DVD by Village Roadshow, with an MA15+ rating. Despite the Australian packaging stating the length to be 124 minutes, the actual DVD version is just over 141 minutes long.

Box office performance
Traffic was given a limited release on December 27, 2000, in four theaters where it grossed US$184,725 on its opening weekend. It was given a wide release on January 5, 2001, in 1,510 theaters, grossing $15.5 million on its opening weekend. The film made $124.1 million in North America and $83.4 million in foreign markets for a worldwide total of $207.5 million, well above its estimated $46 million budget.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 223 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Soderbergh successfully pulls off the highly ambitious Traffic, a movie with three different stories and a very large cast. The issues of ethics are gray rather than black-and-white, with no clear-cut good guys. Terrific acting all around." On Metacritic the film has received an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "The movie is powerful precisely because it doesn't preach. It is so restrained that at one moment—the judge's final speech—I wanted one more sentence, making a point, but the movie lets us supply that thought for ourselves". Stephen Holden, in his review for The New York Times, wrote, "Traffic is an utterly gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Or rather it is several interwoven thrillers, each with its own tense rhythm and explosive payoff". In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "Traffic marks [Soderbergh] definitively as an enormous talent, one who never lets us guess what he's going to do next. The promise of Sex, Lies, and Videotape has been fulfilled".

Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A" rating and praised Benicio del Toro's performance, which critic Owen Gleiberman called, "haunting in his understatement, [it] becomes the film's quietly awakening moral center". Desson Howe, in his review for the Washington Post, wrote, "Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, who based this on a British television miniseries of the same name, have created an often exhilarating, soup-to-nuts exposé of the world's most lucrative trade". In his review for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers wrote, "The hand-held camerawork – Soderbergh himself did the holding—provides a documentary feel that rivets attention". However, Richard Schickel of Time, in a rare negative review, finds the film's biggest weakness to be that it contains the "cliches of a hundred crime movies" before concluding that "Traffic, for all its earnestness, does not work. It leaves one feeling restless and dissatisfied". In an interview, director Ingmar Bergman lauded the film as "amazing".

Accolades
Steven Soderbergh received dual nominations for Best Director that year for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic, winning the award for the latter.

Top ten lists
Traffic appeared on several critics' top ten lists for 2000. Some of the notable top-ten list appearances are:
 * 2nd: A. O. Scott, The New York Times
 * 2nd: Jami Bernard, New York Daily News
 * 2nd: Bruce Kirkland, The Toronto Sun
 * 3rd: Stephen Holden, The New York Times
 * 3rd: Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
 * 3rd: Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 * 4th: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
 * 4th: Jack Mathews, New York Daily News

title: Traffic (2000 film)


text:
Axis

An axis (: axes) may refer to:

Mathematics

 * A specific line that plays an important role is some contexts. In particular:
 * Coordinate axis of a coordinate system
 * x-axis, y-axis, z-axis, common names for the coordinate axes of a Cartesian coordinate system
 * Axis of rotation
 * Axis of symmetry
 * Axis of a conic section

Politics

 * Axis powers of World War II, 1936–1945.
 * Axis of evil (first used in 2002), U.S. President George W. Bush's description of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea
 * Axis of Resistance (first used in 2002), the Shia alliance of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah
 * Political spectrum, sometimes called an axis

Science

 * Axis (anatomy), the second cervical vertebra of the spine
 * Axis (genus), a genus of deer
 * Axis, an anatomical term of orientation
 * Axis, a botanical term meaning the line through the centre of a plant
 * Optical axis, a line of rotational symmetry
 * Axis (journal), online journal published by The Mineralogical Record

Technology

 * Apache Axis, a web-service framework from Apache Software Foundation
 * Yahoo! Axis, a mobile web browser

Music

 * Axis: Bold as Love (1967), a studio album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
 * Axis (Paul Bley album) (1977)
 * Axis (Pegz album) (2005)
 * "Axis" (song), 2013, by Pet Shop Boys
 * The Axis of Awesome, an Australian comedy music act that performed from 2006 to 2018

Other uses in arts and entertainment

 * AXIS (comics), "Avengers & X-Men: AXIS" (2014), a Marvel Comics storyline
 * Axis Amerika, the name of two teams of super-villains who have appeared in DC Comics
 * Axis, an asteroid in the Gundam science fiction media franchise
 * Axis (film), a 2017 drama directed by Aisha Tyler
 * Axis (novel), a 2007 science-fiction novel by Robert Charles Wilson
 * AXIS Dance Company, a professional contemporary dance company and dance education organization in Oakland, California, U.S.

Brands and enterprises

 * Axis Bank, a private sector bank in India
 * AXIS Capital, a Bermuda-based and global operating reinsurer
 * Axis Communications, a Swedish manufacturer of IP cameras
 * AXIS Flight Training Systems, an Austrian-based manufacturer of flight simulators
 * Axis Percussion, a drum-related manufacturer
 * Axis Records (disambiguation), several music labels
 * Axis Telecom, a national GSM mobile operator in Indonesia
 * The AXIS, a Las Vegas resort/casino concert venue

Other uses

 * Axis, Alabama, an unincorporated area in the United States

title: Axis


text:
Eagle

Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus Aquila. Most of the 68 species of eagles are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just 14 species can be found—two in North America, nine in Central and South America, and three in Australia.

Eagles are not a natural group but denote essentially any kind of bird of prey large enough to hunt sizeable (about 50 cm long or more overall) vertebrates.

Etymology
The word "eagle" is borrowed into English from and aigle, both derived ultimately from aquila ("eagle"). It is cognate with terms such as aigle, águia and águila. It is broadly synonymous with the less common English term "erne" or "earn", deriving from ern, from earn, in which it acts as the usual word for the bird. The Old English term is turn derived from *arnuz and is cognate with other synonymous words in Germanic languages such as örn, Aar and ara. Through the Proto-Indo-European root, it is further related to words such as ("bird") and erelis ("eagle"). Although "erne" can be used to refer to any eagle, it is most commonly used for the golden eagle or sea-eagle.

Description
Eagles are large, powerfully-built birds of prey, with heavy heads and beaks. Even the smallest eagles, such as the booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus), which is comparable in size to a common buzzard (Buteo buteo) or red-tailed hawk (B. jamaicensis), have relatively longer and more evenly broad wings, and more direct, faster flight, despite the reduced size of their aerodynamic feathers. Most eagles are larger than any other raptors, apart from some vultures. The smallest species of eagle is the Great Nicobar serpent eagle (Spilornis klossi), at 450 g and 40 cm. The largest species are discussed below. Like all birds of prey, eagles have very large hooked beaks for ripping flesh from their prey, strong, muscular legs, and powerful talons.

The beak is typically heavier than that of most other birds of prey. Eagles' eyes are extremely powerful. It is estimated that the wedge-tailed eagle has a visual acuity twice that of a typical human. This acuity enables eagles to spot potential prey from a very long distance. This keen eyesight is primarily attributed to their extremely large pupils which ensure minimal diffraction (scattering) of the incoming light. Like most diurnal raptors, eagles have little ability to see ultraviolet light. The female of all known species of eagles is larger than the male.

Eagles normally build their nests, called eyries, in tall trees or on high cliffs. Many species lay two eggs, but the older, larger chick frequently kills its younger sibling once it has hatched. The parents take no action to stop the killing. It is said that eagles fly above clouds but this is not true. Eagles fly during storms and glide from the wind's pressure. This saves the bird's energy. Due to the size and power of many eagle species, they are ranked at the top of the food chain as apex predators in the avian world. The type of prey varies by genus. The Haliaeetus and Icthyophaga eagles prefer to capture fish, though the species in the former often capture various animals, especially other water birds, and are powerful kleptoparasites of other birds. The snake and serpent eagles of the genera Circaetus, Terathopius, and Spilornis predominantly prey on the great diversity of snakes found in the tropics of Africa and Asia. The eagles of the genus Aquila are often the top birds of prey in open habitats, taking almost any medium-sized vertebrate they can catch. Where Aquila eagles are absent, other eagles, such as the buteonine black-chested buzzard-eagle of South America, may assume the position of top raptorial predator in open areas. Many other eagles, including the species-rich genus Spizaetus, live predominantly in woodlands and forests. These eagles often target various arboreal or ground-dwelling mammals and birds, which are often unsuspectingly ambushed in such dense, knotty environments. Hunting techniques differ among the species and genera, with some individual eagles having engaged in quite varied techniques based on their environment and prey at any given time. Most eagles grab prey without landing and take flight with it, so the prey can be carried to a perch and torn apart.

The bald eagle is noted for having flown with the heaviest load verified to be carried by any flying bird, since one eagle flew with a 6.8 kg mule deer fawn. However, a few eagles may target prey considerably heavier than themselves; such prey is too heavy to fly with, thus it is either eaten at the site of the kill or taken in pieces back to a perch or nest. Golden and crowned eagles have killed ungulates weighing up to 30 kg and a martial eagle even killed a 37 kg duiker, 7–8 times heavier than the preying eagle. Authors on birds David Allen Sibley, Pete Dunne, and Clay Sutton described the behavioral difference between hunting eagles and other birds of prey thus (in this case the bald and golden eagles as compared to other North American raptors):

They have at least one singular characteristic. It has been observed that most birds of prey look back over their shoulders before striking prey (or shortly thereafter); predation is after all a two-edged sword. All hawks seem to have this habit, from the smallest kestrel to the largest Ferruginous – but not the Eagles.

Among the eagles are some of the largest birds of prey: only the condors and some of the Old World vultures are markedly larger. It is regularly debated which should be considered the largest species of eagle. They could be measured variously in total length, body mass, or wingspan. Different lifestyle needs among various eagles result in variable measurements from species to species. For example, many forest-dwelling eagles, including the very large harpy eagle, have relatively short wingspans, a feature necessary for being able to maneuver in quick, short bursts through densely forested habitats. Eagles in the genus Aquila, found almost exclusively in open country, are noted for their ability to soar, and have relatively long wings for their size.

These lists of the top five eagles are based on weight, length, and wingspan, respectively. Unless otherwise noted by reference, the figures listed are the median reported for each measurement in the guide Raptors of the World in which only measurements that could be personally verified by the authors were listed.

Habitat
The eagles are generally distributed in all types of habitats and nearly all parts of the world. The birds can be found in northern tundra to tropical rainforests and deserts. In North America, bald eagles and golden eagles are very common.

Distribution

 * Australasian
 * Australia: wedge-tailed eagle (range extends into southern New Guinea), white-bellied sea-eagle (range extends into Asia), little eagle.
 * New Guinea: Papuan eagle, white-bellied sea-eagle, pygmy eagle.
 * Nearctic (USA and Canada): golden eagle (also found in Palearctic), bald eagle.
 * Neotropical (Central and South America): Spizaetus (four species), solitary eagles (two spp.), harpy eagle, crested eagle, black-chested buzzard-eagle.
 * Palearctic (Europe, Northern Africa, Asia without South Asia and Southeast Asia)
 * Eurasia: Golden eagle, White-tailed eagle.
 * Subsaharan Africa: African fish eagle, Martial Eagle, Crowned eagle, Verreaux's eagle, Tawny eagle, Long-crested eagle

Groups
Eagles are often informally divided into four groups.

The snake eagles are placed in the subfamily Circaetinae. The fish eagles, booted eagles, and harpy eagles have traditionally been placed in the subfamily Buteoninae together with the buzzard-hawks (buteonine hawks) and harriers. Some authors may treat these groups as tribes of the Buteoninae; Lerner & Mindell proposed separating the eagle groups into their own subfamilies of Accipitridae.

Fish eagles
Sea eagles or fish eagles take fish as a large part of their diets, either fresh or as carrion.

Proposed subfamily Haliaeetinae. Genera: Haliaeetus, Icthyophaga.

Some authors include Gypohierax angolensis, the "vulturine fish eagle" (also called the palm-nut vulture) in this group. However, genetic analyses indicate it is related to a grouping of Neophron–Gypaetus–Eutriorchis (Egyptian vulture, bearded vulture (lammergeier), and Madagascar serpent eagle).

The fish eagles have a close genetic relationship with Haliastur and Milvus; the whole group is only distantly related to the Buteo group.

Fish eagles exist in every continent throughout the world, except for South America.

Although fish eagles can be found in many different places around the world, they have been classified as "Near Threatened". Reasons such as overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction, and the use of pesticides have contributed to the species' rapid population drop.

Booted eagles
The booted eagle is a group of eagle that typically migrates across the Sahara Desert to Europe. It usually reaches Europe around the beginning of March and leaves by the end of September. It's interesting to note that these types of eagles usually mate with the same partner and return to the same areas years later. Female booted eagles usually lay 1-4 eggs, which promptly hatch after 37 to 40 days. Researchers estimate that there are between 3600 to 6900 pairs of booted eagles in Europe, which are mostly situated in the Iberian Peninsula.

Booted eagles or "true eagles" have feathered tarsi (lower legs).

Tribe Aquililae or proposed subfamily Aquilinae. Genera: Aquila, Hieraaetus; Spizaetus, Oroaetus, Spizastur; Nisaetus; Ictinaetus, Lophoaetus; Polemaetus; and Stephanoaetus.

See comments under eagle species for changes to the composition of these genera.

Snake eagles
Most snake or serpent eagles, as the name suggests, primarily prey on snakes.

 * Subfamily Circaetinae. Genera: Circaetus, Spilornis, Dryotriorchis, Terathopius.
 * Eutriorchis (subfamily Gypaetinae or Circaetinae).

Despite filling the niche of a snake eagle, genetic studies suggest that the Madagascar serpent eagle (Eutriorchis) is not related to them.

Over several decades, a great deal of research has been done on the  Snake-eagle's diet, which is mainly made up of reptiles, especially snakes. When it comes to catching snakes, it is generally accepted that the bird exhibits generalist feeding behavior, which means it does not hunt down specific types of snakes but rather feeds on them depending on their availability in the wild.

Harpy eagles
Harpy eagles or "giant forest eagles" are large eagles that inhabit tropical forests. The group contains two to six species, depending on the author. Although these birds occupy similar niches and have traditionally been grouped, they are not all related: the solitary eagles are related to the black hawks and the Philippine eagle to the snake eagles.

 * Harpy eagles (proposed subfamily Harpiinae)
 * Harpia harpyja, harpy eagle ― Central and South America.
 * Morphnus guianensis, crested eagle ― Central and South America.
 * Harpyopsis novaeguineae, Papuan eagle ― New Guinea.
 * Philippine eagle
 * Pithecophaga jefferyi, Philippine eagle ― Philippines.
 * Solitary eagles
 * Chaco eagle or crowned solitary eagle, Buteogallus (formerly Harpyhaliaetus) coronatus ― South America.
 * Solitary eagle or montane solitary eagle, Buteogallus (formerly Harpyhaliaetus) solitarius ― South America.

Species
Major new research into eagle taxonomy suggests that the important genera Aquila and Hieraaetus are not composed of nearest relatives, and it is likely that a reclassification of these genera will soon take place, with some species being moved to Lophaetus or Ictinaetus.
 * Bonelli's eagle and the African hawk-eagle have been moved from Hieraaetus to Aquila.
 * Either the greater spotted eagle and lesser spotted eagle should move from Aquila to join the long-crested eagle in Lophaetus, or, perhaps better, all three of these species should move to Ictinaetus with the black eagle.
 * The steppe eagle and tawny eagle, once thought to be conspecific, are not even each other's nearest relatives.

Family Accipitridae

 * Subfamily Buteoninae – hawks (buzzards), true eagles and seaeagles
 * Genus Geranoaetus
 * Black-chested buzzard-eagle, Geranoaetus melanoleucus
 * Genus Harpyhaliaetus
 * Chaco eagle, Buteogallus coronatus
 * Solitary eagle, H. solitarius
 * Genus Morphnus
 * Crested eagle, Morphnus guianensis
 * Genus Harpia
 * Harpy eagle, Harpia harpyja
 * Genus Pithecophaga
 * Philippine eagle, Pithecophaga jefferyi
 * Genus Harpyopsis
 * Papuan eagle, Harpyopsis novaeguineae
 * Genus Spizaetus
 * Black hawk-eagle, S. tyrannus
 * Ornate hawk-eagle, S. ornatus
 * Black-and-white hawk-eagle, S. melanoleucus – formerly Spizastur
 * Black-and-chestnut eagle, S. isidori – formerly Oroaetus
 * Genus Nisaetus – previously included in Spizaetus
 * Changeable hawk-eagle, N. cirrhatus
 * Flores hawk-eagle N. floris – earlier a subspecies, S. c. floris
 * Sulawesi hawk-eagle, N. lanceolatus
 * Mountain hawk-eagle, N. nipalensis
 * Legge's hawk-eagle, Nisaetus kelaarti – previously a race of S. nipalensis
 * Blyth's hawk-eagle, N. alboniger
 * Javan hawk-eagle, N. bartelsi
 * (Northern) Philippine hawk-eagle, N. philippensis
 * Pinsker's hawk-eagle (Southern Philippine hawk-eagle), Nisaetus pinskeri – earlier S. philippensis pinskeri
 * Wallace's hawk-eagle, N. nanus
 * Genus Lophaetus
 * Long-crested eagle, Lophaetus occipitalis – possibly belongs in Ictinaetus
 * Genus Stephanoaetus
 * Crowned eagle, Stephanoaetus coronatus
 * Malagasy crowned eagle, Stephanoaetus mahery
 * Genus Polemaetus
 * Martial eagle, Polemaetus bellicosus
 * Genus Hieraaetus
 * Ayres's hawk-eagle, H. ayresii
 * Little eagle, H. morphnoides
 * Pygmy eagle, H. weiskei – previously subspecies H. m. weiskei
 * Booted eagle, H. pennatus
 * Haast's eagle, †H. moorei
 * Genus Lophotriorchis
 * Rufous-bellied eagle, L. kienerii Eagle Lahore Zoo June302005.jpg in Lahore Zoo, Pakistan]]
 * Genus Aquila
 * Bonelli's eagle, Aquila fasciata – formerly Hieraaetus fasciatus
 * African hawk-eagle, A. spilogaster – formerly in Hieraaetus
 * Cassin's hawk-eagle, A. africana – formerly in Hieraaetus or Spizaetus genera
 * Golden eagle, A. chrysaetos
 * Eastern imperial eagle, A. heliaca
 * Spanish imperial eagle A. adalberti
 * Steppe eagle, A. nipalensis
 * Tawny eagle, A. rapax
 * Greater spotted eagle, A. clanga – to be moved to Lophaetus or Ictinaetus
 * Lesser spotted eagle, A. pomarina – to be moved to Lophaetus or Ictinaetus
 * Indian spotted eagle, A. hastata – to be moved to Lophaetus or Ictinaetus
 * Verreaux's eagle, A. verreauxii
 * Gurney's eagle, A. gurneyi
 * Wahlberg's eagle, A. wahlbergi – to be moved to Hieraaetus
 * Wedge-tailed eagle, A. audax
 * Genus Ictinaetus
 * Black eagle, Ictinaetus malaiensis
 * Genus Haliaeetus
 * White-tailed eagle, Haliaeetus albicilla
 * Bald eagle, H. leucocephalus
 * Steller's sea eagle, H. pelagicus
 * Pallas' sea eagle, H. leucoryphus
 * Genus Icthyophaga
 * Lesser fish eagle, Icthyophaga humilis
 * Grey-headed fish eagle, I. ichthyaetus
 * African fish eagle, I. vocifer
 * White-bellied sea eagle, I. leucogaster
 * Sanford's sea eagle, I. sanfordi
 * Madagascar fish eagle, I. vociferoides
 * Subfamily Circaetinae: snake-eagles
 * Genus Terathopius
 * Bateleur, Terathopius ecaudatus
 * Genus Circaetus
 * Short-toed snake eagle, Circaetus gallicus
 * Beaudouin's snake eagle, Circaetus beaudouini
 * Black-chested snake eagle, C. pectoralis
 * Brown snake eagle, C. cinereus
 * Fasciated snake eagle, C. fasciolatus
 * Western banded snake eagle, C. cinerascens
 * Genus Dryotriorchis
 * Congo serpent eagle, D. spectabilis
 * Genus Spilornis
 * Crested serpent eagle, Spilornis cheela
 * Central Nicobar serpent eagle, S. minimus (subspecies or species)
 * Great Nicobar serpent eagle, S. klossi
 * Mountain serpent eagle, S. kinabaluensis
 * Sulawesi serpent eagle, S. rufipectus
 * Philippine serpent eagle, S. holospilus
 * Andaman serpent eagle, S. elgini
 * Genus Eutriorchis
 * Madagascar serpent eagle, Eutriorchis astur

Etymology
The modern English term for the bird is derived from aquila by way of aigle. The origin of aquila is unknown, but it is believed to possibly derive from aquilus (meaning dark-colored, swarthy, or blackish) as a reference to the plumage of eagles.

Old English used the term earn, related to Scandinavia's ørn/örn. It is similar to other Indo-European terms for "bird" or "eagle", including ὄρνις, орёл , and eryr.

In the southern part of Finland, near the Gulf of Finland, is the town of Kotka, which literally means "eagle", while the town of L'Aquila in the central part of Italy literally means "the eagle".

In Britain before 1678, eagle referred specifically to the golden eagle, with the other native species, the white-tailed eagle, being known as erne. The modern name "golden eagle" for aquila chrysaetos was introduced by the naturalist John Ray.

The village of Eagle in Lincolnshire, England, has nothing to do with the bird; its name is derived from the Old English words for "oak" and "wood" (compare Oakley).

Religion and spirituality

In the ancient Sumerian mythology, the mythical king Etana was said to have been carried into heaven by an eagle. Classical writers such as Lucan and Pliny the Elder claimed that the eagle was able to look directly at the sun, and that they forced their fledglings to do the same. Those that blinked would be cast from the nest. This belief persisted until the Medieval era.

The eagle is the patron animal of the ancient Greek god Zeus. In particular, Zeus was said to have taken the form of an eagle in order to abduct Ganymede, and there are numerous artistic depictions of the eagle Zeus bearing Ganymede aloft, from Classical times up to the present (see illustrations in the Ganymede (mythology) page.)

Eagles appear metaphorically in many translations of the Old Testament. God is spoken of as carrying Israel on "eagles' wings" in Exodus 19:4, Isaiah 40:31 compares those who wait on the Lord to flying eagles, and Psalm 103 mentions renewing one's youth "as the eagle". In explaining this rejuvenation, Augustine of Hippo says in his commentary on the Psalms that eagles' beaks overgrow as they age and that they break them against rocks to restore them. The translation, however, is uncertain: the word in the Hebrew, נשר, can also be translated vulture, and is listed alongside specific kinds of vulture in Leviticus' discussion of unclean animals.

The eagle is also often used in Christian iconography to represent the Gospel of John, and eagle-shaped lecterns are common in Anglican and some Roman Catholic churches. The eagle was believed to be able to look directly into the sun in the same way that the Gospel of John looks directly at Jesus' divinity, and the great distances the eagle flies represent the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

The United States eagle feather law stipulates that only individuals of certifiable Native American ancestry enrolled in a federally recognized tribe are legally authorized to obtain eagle feathers for religious or spiritual reasons. In Canada, the poaching of eagle feathers for the booming U.S. market has sometimes resulted in the arrests of First Nations person for the crime.

The Moche people of ancient Peru worshiped the eagle and often depicted eagles in their art. The golden eagle was sacred to the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli while the harpy eagle was sacred to Quetzalcoatl.

Heraldry

Eagles are an exceptionally common symbol in heraldry, being considered the "King of Birds" in contrast to the lion, the "King of Beasts". Whereas the lion (e.g. England) usually represents authority, the eagle is the symbol of power. They are particularly popular in Germanic countries such as Austria, due to their association with the Holy Roman Empire. The eagle of the Holy Roman Empire was two-headed, supposedly representing the two divisions, East and West, of the old Roman Empire. This motif, derived from the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire was also adopted by the Russian Empire and is still featured in the Flag of Albania. The Roman eagle was preceded by the eagle of Ptolemaic Egypt and the Achaemenid Empire. In the coat of arms of Kotka, Finland, the eagle is depicted carrying an anchor and the caduceus on its feet.

Heraldic eagles are most often found displayed, i.e. with their wings and legs extended. They can also occur close, i.e. with their wings folded, or rising, i.e. about to take flight. The heads, wings, and legs of eagles can also be found independently.

Eagles symbolize strength, courage, and independence and are commonly found in the heraldry of many nations across the world. Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Dagestan, Egypt, Germany, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Montenegro, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Palestine, Panama, Russia, Romania, Serbia, South Sudan, Somaliland, the United States of America, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are the nations whose coats of arms feature an eagle. The eagle's continuing significance and worldwide appeal as a forceful symbol in national identity and imagery is demonstrated by its widespread usage.

title: Eagle


text:
Baltic

Baltic may refer to:

Peoples and languages

 * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
 * Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originating from the Baltic countries
 * Baltic Germans, historical ethnic German minority in Latvia and Estonia

 * Baltic Finnic peoples, the Finnic peoples historically inhabiting the area on the northeastern side of the Baltic sea

Northern Europe

 * Baltic Sea, in Europe
 * Baltic region, an ambiguous term referring to the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea
 * Baltic states (also Baltic countries, Baltic nations, Baltics), a geopolitical term, currently referring to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
 * Baltic Provinces or governorates, former parts of the Swedish Empire and then Russian Empire (in modern Latvia, Estonia)
 * Baltic Shield, the exposed Precambrian northwest segment of the East European Craton
 * Baltic Plate, an ancient tectonic plate that is now fused onto the Eurasian Plate

North America

 * Baltic, Connecticut
 * Baltic, Ohio
 * Baltic, South Dakota

Ships and related

 * Baltic (steamship)
 * Baltic (tug), a German emergency tow vessel
 * CSS Baltic, an iron and cottonclad sidewheeler ship built in 1860
 * HMS Baltic (1808), Royal Navy cutter, formerly the Russian Opyt
 * Baltic Exchange, a UK company that operates as a marketplace for shipbrokers, ship owners and charterers
 * Baltic Dry Index, a daily shipping index published by the Baltic Exchange
 * Baltic Fleet, the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea
 * Baltic Shipyard in Saint Petersburg, one of the oldest shipyards in Russia

Sport

 * Baltic Cup (football), an international football tournament held between Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania
 * Baltic League, a football club tournament held between the top club sides from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, defunct since 2011
 * Baltic Basketball League, founded in 2004

Other uses

 * Baltics (poem), a 1974 long poem by Tomas Tranströmer
 * Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK
 * Baltic State Opera, the Opera House in Gdańsk, Poland
 * Baltic Mining Company, a copper mining operation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
 * Baltic, a locomotive with a 4-6-4 wheel arrangement

title: Baltic