Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audiotapes, for numerous acts of terrorism in Iraq and Jordan. These acts include suicide bombings, and the killing of soldiers, police officers, and civilians. As an Islamist that identified with the Salafi movement, Zarqawi opposed the presence of United States and Western military forces in the Islamic world and opposed the West's support for and the existence of Israel. In September 2005, he reportedly declared "all-out war" on Shia Muslims in Iraq and is believed responsible for dispatching numerous Al-Qaedasuicide bombers throughout Iraq, especially to areas with large concentrations of Shia civilians. As the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq he is suspected of responsibility for thousands of deaths. Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike in June, 2006. (more...)
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but it would be decades before reliable synchronization was achieved in a commercially practical way. The first commercial screening of movies with fully synchronized sound took place in the United States in April 1923. In the early years after the introduction of sound, films incorporating synchronized dialogue were known as "talkies." The first feature-length movie originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural/commercial systems. (more...)
A close-up of the face of a Culpeo, clearly showing its vibrissae, or whiskers. Vibrissae are specialized hairs that grow around the nostrils or other parts of the face in most mammals. They offer an advantage to animals that do not always have sight to rely on to navigate, or to find food, or when the usefulness of non-tactile senses is limited.
The assembled human DNA clamp, a trimer of the protein PCNA, is a processivity factor that increases the speed and efficiency of DNA replication. In the assembled replication complex, the clamp encircles the DNA, which passes through the central pore, and binds DNA polymerase to prevent the enzyme from dissociating from the template DNA strand. The DNA clamp protein's presence can increase the rate of DNA synthesis up to 1,000-fold versus a nonprocessive polymerase.
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