query: How many colleges in the U.S. have rugby teams?

title: College rugby

text: There are over 900 college teams—male and female—registered with USA Rugby.[1] There are over 32,000 college players registered with USA Rugby, making college rugby the largest section of USA Rugby's membership.[2]

title: History of rugby union in the United States

text: Rugby began its revival in the United States in the late 1950s and into the 1960s and 1970s, as many colleges started club rugby teams. Rugby began getting some coverage in the media, including in the New York Times, when 1958 Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins played for Oxford against Cambridge in 1959. The first rugby sevens tournament in the U.S. was played during Thanksgiving weekend in 1959 in New York with eight teams from various northeast colleges.

title: Rugby union in the United States

text: Rugby union is played in universities throughout the United States. More than 1,000 colleges have rugby teams. College rugby is the largest section of USA Rugby's membership. For the 2010-11 season, there were over 32,000 college members and 854 college clubs registered with USA Rugby, roughly a 14% increase from 28,000 college members in August 2008. College rugby continues to grow in popularity, and rugby is one of the fastest growing sports across college campuses.

title: Loyola Greyhounds

text: The Loyola University Rugby Football Club is the men's rugby union team that represents Loyola in the National Small College Rugby Organization. The club is composed of over 50 student-athletes, alumni volunteers, and professional trainers. Founded in 1976 by a group of Loyola students, LURFC continues to be the oldest and most active club sport at the college. LURFC and its players have achieved many All-American titles and U.S. Rugby rankings, currently ranked #8 in the country and in the NSCRO "Sweet 16" in 2017.

title: USA Rugby

text: USA Rugby was founded in 1975 as the United States of America Rugby Football Union, and it organized the first U.S. national team match in 1976. Today, USA Rugby has over 130,000 memberships, the largest segment being college rugby with over 32,000 members. USA Rugby oversees 1,200 high school teams, 900 college teams, 700 senior club teams, and 400 youth teams. USA Rugby administers all United States national teams: senior men's and women's teams, sevens teams for both men and women, and under-20 national teams for both sexes. The organization also sponsors college rugby for both sexes, although since the 2010–11 academic year the NCAA has designated women's rugby an emerging varsity sport.

title: Skull and crossbones (fraternities and sports)

text:
In Ireland the University College Cork, has used the skull and crossbones laid over the University badge for many of its sporting teams, most notably the College rugby team. Although there is dispute to the origin of the adoption of the badge, it is believed that the University's past connection as a medical school may have been the reason for its use. The University College even references the skull and crossbones in their College Victory Cry.
Poole Pirates Speedway Team in the United Kingdom have the Skull and Crossbones as their team badge.

text:
USA Rugby, the body that governs rugby in the U.S., was founded in 1975. On 31 January 1976, the U.S. national team played Australia—in its first official match since the 1924 Olympics—before 7,000 fans at Glover Field in Los Angeles.
In 1980, USA Rugby formed a college national championship tournament. In 1987, the U.S. national team participated in the inaugural Rugby World Cup. The U.S. women's national team was officially formed in 1987.
The Rugby Super League, a nationwide club competition, was played from 1996 to 2012. From 2003 to 2011, the U.S. national team played in the Churchill Cup, with the U.S. hosting matches from 2006 to 2010. The U.S. men's national rugby sevens team has participated in the World Rugby Sevens Series each year since the tournament's founding in 1999, and the women's national sevens team has participated in the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series since the competition's launch in 2012. Rugby in the U.S. received a significant boost in 2009 when the International Olympic Committee voted to reinstate rugby into the Summer Olympics beginning in 2016. In 2014, the United States hosted the New Zealand national team before a record sellout crowd of 60,000+ at Soldier Field in Chicago, a match later billed as potentially marking the rise of American rugby. In 2016, PRO Rugby established the first fully professional Rugby competition in the U.S. Also in that year, the English top-flight club London Irish took a home match against Saracens to the Red Bull Arena in the New York area, marking the first top-flight English match ever held outside that country.

title: Saint Kentigern College

text: Several high performance sports personalities and coaches based around the world have attended Saint Kentigern. The school has a tennis and golf academy for students who excel in the two sports respectively. Saint Kentigern has dominated tennis, golf, rugby, cycling and triathlon competitions in the last decade. Many school teams such as the rugby, hockey and cricket teams play in the top grades, while the Cycling and Triathlon programme (under the governance of Mr Rick Faulding) has thrived. Saint Kentigern College holds several Auckland cycling records and national titles. In triathlon, the College has many national titles also.

title: Australian Schoolboys rugby union team

text: The Australian Schoolboys & U18 rugby union team is the national team for schoolboy rugby union& U18 players in Australia. Considered to be the pinnacle of schoolboy & U18 rugby in Australia, the team plays in fixtures against other national representative schoolboy teams from around the world. Many players who have played in the Australian Schoolboys team have gone on to further representative careers with Super Rugby franchise teams and the Australian national rugby union team.

title: Division 1-A Rugby

text: Because of these issues, and to raise the level of rugby in the consciousness of the American public, USA Rugby restructured Division 1 college rugby. In 2010, several of the top college teams agreed to form the College Premier League to begin play in spring 2011. USA Rugby and the top colleges believed that an elite level college rugby competition would make it easier to get college rugby onto TV and attract sponsors. USA Rugby also believed that a higher level college competition would develop players to potentially play for the U.S. national team.

title: Olympic Club

text: Olympic Club fields a rugby team that has participates in the Pacific Rugby Premiership and formerly in USA D1 and in the Rugby Super League. The Pacific Rugby Premiership (PRP) is the highest level domestic rugby competition in the U.S. Several players from Olympic Club have played for the U.S. national rugby team.

text: Rugby union in the United States began its revival in the 1960s and 1970s, as many colleges started club rugby teams. USA Rugby, the body that governs rugby in the U.S., was founded in 1975. On 31 January 1976, the U.S. national team played Australia—in its first official match since the 1924 Olympics—before 7,000 fans at Glover Field in Los Angeles. The United States national team participated in the inaugural 1987 Rugby World Cup. Rugby in the U.S. received a significant boost in 2009 when the International Olympic Committee voted to reinstate rugby into the Summer Olympics beginning in 2016.

title: Mount St Mary's College

text: For each year, there are three forms and each form applies to one of the schools houses.The school takes part in sports, notably rugby, and some of its older students have joined the England Rugby teams along with Scotland, Ireland, Italy, and many other countries. The school also receives rugby honours, winning the NatWest Schools Cup in 1994, after being runners up in 1992. The college also won the National Schools Sevens in 1988. The annual invitational Sevens competition held every year at the college sees the rugby schools from around the UK compete. There is an extremely strong sporting rivalry against fellow Catholic Public Schools, Stonyhurst College and Ampleforth College.

title: College rugby

text: Small College Rugby, formerly known as Division III, is governed by the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO). The National Small College Rugby Organization was created to give a competitive outlet to small colleges which would not otherwise have an opportunity to compete on a national stage. Each year, the NSCRO hosts rugby tournaments for Men's and Women's college teams, and during 2006-2011 it also conducted a Division IV Women's college tournament.

title: Siena Catholic College

text: Siena has always had a strong sporting reputation. Most sport teams are nicknamed the wolves, or in the case of the rugby 1st XV, "The Wolfpack". Typically, it has been waterpolo, touch, dancing, netball, basketball and rugby teams that have celebrated the most success. Arguably, the most successful team in the college's history was the u/15 rugby union team of 2014, where they won 3 back to back premierships in 2013 and 2014, and went on to win the prestigious Ballymore Cup. However, the team was not able to stay together for open division rugby, as many players would go on to accept sporting scholarships from various schools in Brisbane. Siena has a proud reputation on the Sunshine Coast for playing sport in a firm, but fair nature.

title: Matai Leuta

text: Leuta became serious in 2013 about pursuing rugby professionally, and improved his diet and fitness. Before joining the U.S. national team, Leuta was studying at Monterey Peninsula College and playing amateur club rugby. Leuta was discovered in early 2015 at a recruitment camp at the Olympic Training Center in San Diego, California. Leuta joined the U.S. national rugby sevens team in 2015.

title: Bulawayo

text: It is home to Hartsfield Rugby grounds where many international Test matches have been played. Hartsfield was developed by Reg Hart, after whom the grounds were named and on which field many of southern Africa's greatest rugby players have competed. It is home to two large football teams: Highlanders and Zimbabwe Saints. Other football teams include Bantu Rovers, Chicken Inn, How Mine, Quelaton, and Bulawayo City (R).

title: Arizona Wildcats

text: The Wildcats have a successful rugby sevens program. Arizona has regularly reached the quarterfinals of the Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC), the highest profile college rugby competition in the U.S., and the Wildcats finished second at the 2012 CRC. The CRC is played every June in Philadelphia and is broadcast live on NBC. Arizona's best known rugby players include Trevor Brady, who holds the record for the longest successful kick and most points in school history, Peter Tiberio and Brett Thompson, who play for the U.S. national rugby team.

title: Al Caravelli

text: Caravelli leveraged the increased exposure of rugby's planned return to the Olympics in 2016 by overseeing a transition in the U.S. national team from amateur to professional status. Caravelli had set the goal of professionalizing the U.S. team, stating that his number one objective in improving the team was getting a full-time squad that would have more time to train together. Caravelli was a key part of U.S. 7s rugby winning a grant from the USOC that allowed the U.S. to contract with 15 professional full-time rugby players for the U.S. national rugby sevens team. Caravelli’s goal for the U.S. national team was to win a gold medal at the 2016 Olympics.

title: Sports in the United States

text:
Rugby union is played professionally, recreationally and in colleges, though it is not governed by the NCAA (see college rugby). An estimated 1.2 million people in the United States play rugby. The U.S. national team has competed at the Rugby World Cup. In rugby sevens, the men's national team is one of 15 "core teams" that participate in every event of the annual World Rugby Sevens Series, and the women's national team is one of 11 core teams in the Women's Sevens Series. The professional domestic club competition PRO Rugby began play in April 2016, but lasted only one season; a second attempt at a professional league, Major League Rugby, launched in 2018.
Rugby union participation in the U.S. has grown significantly in recent years, growing by 350% between 2004 and 2011. A 2010 survey by the National Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association ranked rugby union as the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. The sports profile in the U.S. has received a tremendous boost from the IOC's announcement in 2009 that rugby union would return to the Olympics in 2016. Since the Olympic announcement, rugby union events such as the Collegiate Rugby Championship, the USA Sevens, and the Rugby World Cup have been broadcast on network TV. The USA Sevens, held every year in February or March as part of the World Rugby Sevens Series and adding a parallel women's event in the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series in 2017, regularly draws more than 60,000 fans to Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.

title: PRO Rugby

text: Though teams were scheduled to have coaches by the end of 2015, the uncertainty caused by the open position for head coach of the U.S. national rugby team led to PRO Rugby announcements being put on hold. As of mid-January 2016, with the U.S. head coach in place but no further developments from Pro Rugby, the league then offered the explanation that negotiating venues was what was holding up coach and player announcements but that three venues were close to agreement. On January 22, 2016, PRO Rugby announced San Diego as the league's third team, and media sources started speculating that the league may have only five teams in 2016 instead of the planned six teams. PRO Rugby announced on February 9, 2016 that the league's fourth team would be based in Columbus, Ohio. PRO Rugby officially announced on February 26, 2016 that Denver would be the competition's fifth team.

title: College rugby

text: Today, college rugby continues to grow in popularity, and rugby is one of the fastest growing club sports across college campuses.[1] The 32,000 registered college players in 2010 marked a 14% increase from 28,000 college players in 2008.[4] Over 180 college rugby clubs started between 2010 and 2014.[5] The National Small College Rugby Organization grew from 85 teams in 2007 to 151 teams in 2011 and to over 200 men's teams for 2012.[6][7] Several schools have increased their investments in men's and women's rugby programs, by creating rugby programs with varsity or quasi-varsity status and funding for scholarships,[8] and Notre Dame and Texas have upgraded their rugby programs from "club" status to "Olympic" status.

title: Rugby union in the United States

text: Rugby began its revival in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, as many colleges started club rugby teams. USA Rugby, the body that governs rugby in the U.S., was founded in 1975. On 31 January 1976, the U.S. national team played Australia—in its first official match since the 1924 Olympics—before 8,000 fans at Glover Field in Anaheim, California. Australia won the match 24–12.

title: PAC Rugby Conference

text: Around the turn of the century, American football was frowned upon for its violence, and President Theodore Roosevelt insisted upon reform or abolition of the game. During this period of uncertainty, rugby made a brief but important reappearance in many colleges, most notably at Cal and Stanford. It was these two Universities that supplied most of the players to the two U.S. Olympic rugby teams that won gold medals at the 1920 Olympics and 1924 Olympics. PAC Rugby was shown on television for the first time in 2014, when the PAC 12 Network broadcast Cal vs UCLA. Cal has long been one of the faces of rugby at the collegiate level. In addition, excellence by teams such as UCLA and Arizona, as well as recent growth by USC, have made the conference one of the toughest in the country.

title: Stanford Cardinal

text: Stanford has fielded a college rugby team since 1906, and replaced football entirely until 1917. Stanford achieved one of the most surprising victories of American rugby's early history by beating a touring Australian club team in 1912. Rugby remained a varsity sport at Stanford until 1977. Despite the loss of varsity status, the Stanford Rugby Foundation covers many of the team's expenses from an endowment fund. Rugby is one of the largest sports programs on campus with over 100 players. Stanford Rugby is led by Director of Rugby Matt Sherman, who has served as an assistant coach for the U.S. men's national team.

title: One Tree Hill College

text: One Tree Hill College participates in several interschool sports competitions. Despite having a relatively small student body, the college achieves exceptionally well in many competitions. One Tree Hill College are the current New Zealand Baseball Champions and the college's girls' softball team again won the New Zealand national championship in 2007, reflecting a strong softball tradition at the college. In 2009 the first XI football (soccer) team won the northern regional championship. Between 1969–78 rugby union was especially strong, despite competition from club rugby league outside the college, with the first XV twice being runner-up in the senior A competition. Over the years the college has produced five rugby league Kiwis (internationals) and numerous professional rugby league players. (The former principal, Iva Ropati, is also a former rugby league Kiwi and professional rugby league player.)

title: Grey College, Durham

text: Grey has a large number of sports clubs, ranging from Grey College Boat Club through Grey College Ultimate Frisbee Club to team croquet. Many of Grey's sporting clubs have enjoyed success in recent years, notably the women's hockey team, boat club, darts team, rugby team, football team, cheerleading squad and Ultimate Frisbee Club.

title: Harvard rugby

text: The Harvard Men's Team, along with the Princeton and Yale Rugby teams, began the tradition of U.S. college students going on Spring Break to the Caribbean.

title: Clemson Rugby

text: During the first half of the 1970s the club was one of only a handful in the South. As a result, it led to the team consistently competing against University of North Carolina, Charleston Rugby Club, N.C. State, Atlanta Old White and Medical College of Georgia. In 1973 Clemson rugby alumni Jim McMillan helped found the rugby team at the Medical College of Georgia. In 1972 the club took its first international tour to the Bahamas. The club lost a very tight match to the Freeport Rugby Club due to a very questionable call by the referee in the last minute of the match. The Freeport rugby club at that time had never lost to a U.S. team.

title: USA Rugby

text: The Collegiate Rugby Championship is a rugby sevens competition that has been held every year in June since 2010. The tournament is the highest profile college rugby tournament in the U.S., and is broadcast live on NBC every year from PPL Park in Philadelphia. Every year, the number of spectators increase, and in 2015 the College Rugby Championship broke an attendance record at over 24,000 spectators, which shows how the popularity of the sport is expanding.

title: Washington Huskies

text:
Founded in 1963, the University of Washington Husky Rugby Club plays college rugby in Division 1 in the Northwest Collegiate Rugby Conference against local rivals such as Washington State and Oregon. The Huskies won the Northwest championship in 1996, 2002, 2004 and 2005 and the D1AA Varsity Cup in 2014.
The Huskies are led by head coach Brian Schoener, who formerly played for the U.S. national rugby team, by former U.S. national team player Kevin Swiryn, and by Director of Rugby Mike Alfstad. The Huskies rugby team is partially funded by an endowment from the alumni association.


query: How many moons does Uranus have?

title: Moons of Uranus

text: Uranus, the seventh planet of the Solar System, has 27 known moons, all of which are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.[1] Uranus's moons are divided into three groups: thirteen inner moons, five major moons, and nine irregular moons. The inner moons are small dark bodies that share common properties and origins with Uranus's rings. The five major moons are massive enough to have reached hydrostatic equilibrium, and four of them show signs of internally driven processes such as canyon formation and volcanism on their surfaces.[2] The largest of these five, Titania, is 1,578km in diameter and the eighth-largest moon in the Solar System, and about one-twentieth the mass the Earth's Moon. The orbits of the regular moons are nearly coplanar with Uranus's equator, which is tilted 97.77° to its orbit. Uranus's irregular moons have elliptical and strongly inclined (mostly retrograde) orbits at large distances from the planet.[3]

title: Moons of Uranus

text: The Uranian moons are listed here by orbital period, from shortest to longest. Moons massive enough for their surfaces to have collapsed into a spheroid are highlighted in light blue and bolded. Irregular moons with retrograde orbits are shown in dark grey. Margaret, the only known irregular moon of Uranus with a prograde orbit, is shown in light grey.

title: Ariel (moon)

text: Ariel is the fourth-largest of the 27 known moons of Uranus. Ariel orbits and rotates in the equatorial plane of Uranus, which is almost perpendicular to the orbit of Uranus and so has an extreme seasonal cycle.

title: Miranda (moon)

text: Miranda, also designated Uranus V, is the smallest and innermost of Uranus's five round satellites. It was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 16 February 1948 at McDonald Observatory, and named after Miranda from William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest". Like the other large moons of Uranus, Miranda orbits close to its planet's equatorial plane. Because Uranus orbits the Sun on its side, Miranda's orbit is perpendicular to the ecliptic and shares Uranus's extreme seasonal cycle.

title: Puck (moon)

text: Puck ( ) is an inner moon of Uranus. It was discovered in December 1985 by the "Voyager 2" spacecraft. The name "Puck" follows the convention of naming Uranus's moons after characters from Shakespeare. The orbit of Puck lies between the rings of Uranus and the first of Uranus's large moons, Miranda. Puck is approximately spherical in shape and has diameter of about 162 km. It has a dark, heavily cratered surface, which shows spectral signs of water ice.

title: List of Solar System objects by size

text: The sizes and masses of many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are fairly well known due to numerous observations and interactions of the "Galileo" and "Cassini" orbiters. But many of the moons with a radius less than ~100 km, such as Jupiter's Himalia, still have unknown masses. Again, as we get further from the Sun than Saturn, things get less clear. There has not yet been an orbiter around Uranus or Neptune for long-term study of their moons. For the small outer irregular moons of Uranus, such as Sycorax, which were not discovered by the "Voyager 2" flyby, even different NASA web pages, such as the National Space Science Data Center and JPL Solar System Dynamics, have somewhat contradictory size and albedo estimates depending on which research paper is being cited.

title: Oberon (moon)

text: Oberon is thought to have formed from an accretion disc or subnebula: a disc of gas and dust that either existed around Uranus for some time after its formation or was created by the giant impact that most likely gave Uranus its large obliquity. The precise composition of the subnebula is not known; however, the relatively high density of Oberon and other Uranian moons compared to the moons of Saturn indicates that it may have been relatively water-poor. Significant amounts of carbon and nitrogen may have been present in the form of carbon monoxide and N instead of methane and ammonia. The moons that formed in such a subnebula would contain less water ice (with CO and N trapped as clathrate) and more rock, explaining the higher density.

title: Moons of Uranus

text: Margaret is the only known irregular prograde moon of Uranus, and it currently has the most eccentric orbit of any moon in the Solar System, though Neptune's moon Nereid has a higher mean eccentricity. As of 2008, Margaret's eccentricity is 0.7979.[35]

title: October 2014 lunar eclipse

text: The planet Uranus was near opposition (opposition on October 7) during the eclipse, just over 1° from the eclipsed Moon. Shining at magnitude 5.7, Uranus should have been bright enough to identify in binoculars. Due to parallax, the position of Uranus relative to the Moon varied significantly depending on the viewing position on the surface of Earth.

title: Ariel (moon)

text: All of Uranus's moons are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock". The names of all four satellites of Uranus then known were suggested by John Herschel in 1852 at the request of Lassell. Ariel is named after the leading sylph in "The Rape of the Lock". It is also the name of the spirit who serves Prospero in Shakespeare's "The Tempest". The moon is also designated Uranus I.

title: Ariel (moon)

text: It was discovered in October 1851 by William Lassell and named for a character in two different pieces of literature. As of 2017, much of the detailed knowledge of Ariel derives from a single flyby of Uranus performed by the spacecraft "Voyager 2" in 1986, which managed to image around 35% of the moon's surface. There are no active plans at present to return to study the moon in more detail, although various concepts such as a Uranus orbiter and probe have been proposed.

title: Caliban (moon)

text: Caliban is hypothesized to be a captured object: it did not form in the accretionary disk that existed around Uranus just after its formation. The exact capture mechanism is not known, but capturing a moon requires the dissipation of energy. The possible capture processes include: gas drag in the protoplanetary disk, many body interactions and the capture during the fast growth of the Uranus' mass (so-called "pull-down").

title: Umbriel (moon)

text: So far the only close-up images of Umbriel have been from the "Voyager 2" probe, which photographed the moon during its flyby of Uranus in January 1986. Since the closest distance between "Voyager 2" and Umbriel was , the best images of this moon have a spatial resolution of about 5.2 km. The images cover about 40% of the surface, but only 20% was photographed with the quality required for geological mapping. At the time of the flyby the southern hemisphere of Umbriel (like those of the other moons) was pointed towards the Sun, so the northern (dark) hemisphere could not be studied. No other spacecraft has ever visited Uranus or its moons.

title: Umbriel (moon)

text: Umbriel is thought to have formed from an accretion disc or subnebula; a disc of gas and dust that either existed around Uranus for some time after its formation or was created by the giant impact that most likely gave Uranus its large obliquity. The precise composition of the subnebula is not known; however, the higher density of Uranian moons compared to the moons of Saturn indicates that it may have been relatively water-poor. Significant amounts of nitrogen and carbon may have been present in the form of carbon monoxide (CO) and molecular nitrogen (N) instead of ammonia and methane. The moons that formed in such a subnebula would contain less water ice (with CO and N trapped as clathrate) and more rock, explaining the higher density.

title: Space exploration

text: The exploration of Uranus has been entirely through the "Voyager 2" spacecraft, with no other visits currently planned. Given its axial tilt of 97.77°, with its polar regions exposed to sunlight or darkness for long periods, scientists were not sure what to expect at Uranus. The closest approach to Uranus occurred on 24 January 1986. "Voyager 2" studied the planet's unique atmosphere and magnetosphere. "Voyager 2" also examined its ring system and the moons of Uranus including all five of the previously known moons, while discovering an additional ten previously unknown moons.

title: Umbriel (moon)

text: All of Uranus's moons are named after characters created by William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The names of all four satellites of Uranus then known were suggested by John Herschel in 1852 at the request of Lassell. Umbriel is the "dusky melancholy sprite" in Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock", and the name suggests the Latin "umbra", meaning "shadow". The moon is also designated Uranus II.

title: Ariel (moon)

text: Currently Ariel is not involved in any orbital resonance with other Uranian satellites. In the past, however, it may have been in a 5:3 resonance with Miranda, which could have been partially responsible for the heating of that moon (although the maximum heating attributable to a former 1:3 resonance of Umbriel with Miranda was likely about three times greater). Ariel may have once been locked in the 4:1 resonance with Titania, from which it later escaped. Escape from a mean motion resonance is much easier for the moons of Uranus than for those of Jupiter or Saturn, due to Uranus's lesser degree of oblateness. This resonance, which was likely encountered about 3.8 billion years ago, would have increased Ariel's orbital eccentricity, resulting in tidal friction due to time-varying tidal forces from Uranus. This would have caused warming of the moon's interior by as much as 20 K.

title: Miranda (moon)

text: Miranda was discovered on 16 February 1948 by planetary astronomer Gerard Kuiper using the McDonald Observatory's Otto Struve Telescope. Its motion around Uranus was confirmed on 1 March 1948. It was the first satellite of Uranus discovered in nearly 100 years. Kuiper elected to name the object "Miranda" after the character in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", because the four previously discovered moons of Uranus, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon, had all been named after characters of Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. However, the previous moons had been named specifically after fairies, whereas Miranda was a human. Subsequently, discovered satellites of Uranus were named after characters from Shakespeare and Pope, whether fairies or not. The moon is also designated Uranus V.

title: List of natural satellites

text: Uranus has 27 named moons, five of which are massive enough to have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium. There are another 13 inner moons that orbit within Uranus's ring system, and another nine outer irregular moons. Unlike most planetary moons, which are named from antiquity, all the moons of Uranus are named after characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope's work The Rape of the Lock.

title: Moons of Uranus

text: Uranus's irregular moons range in size from 120–200km (Sycorax) to about 20km (Trinculo).[3] Unlike Jupiter's irregulars, Uranus's show no correlation of axis with inclination. Instead, the retrograde moons can be divided into two groups based on axis/orbital eccentricity. The inner group includes those satellites closer to Uranus (a < 0.15 rH) and moderately eccentric (~0.2), namely Francisco, Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo.[3] The outer group (a > 0.15 rH) includes satellites with high eccentricity (~0.5): Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos, and Ferdinand.[3]

title: Moons of Uranus

text: Uranus has five major moons: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. They range in diameter from 472km for Miranda to 1578km for Titania.[18] All these moons are relatively dark objects: their geometrical albedo varies between 30 and 50%, whereas their Bond albedo is between 10 and 23%.[21] Umbriel is the darkest moon and Ariel the brightest. The masses of the moons range from 6.7×1019kg (Miranda) to 3.5×1021kg (Titania). For comparison, the Moon has a mass of 7.5×1022kg.[24] The major moons of Uranus are thought to have formed in the accretion disc, which existed around Uranus for some time after its formation or resulted from a large impact suffered by Uranus early in its history.[25][26]

title: Ariel (moon)

text: Ariel is thought to have formed from an accretion disc or subnebula; a disc of gas and dust that either existed around Uranus for some time after its formation or was created by the giant impact that most likely gave Uranus its large obliquity. The precise composition of the subnebula is not known; however, the higher density of Uranian moons compared to the moons of Saturn indicates that it may have been relatively water-poor. Significant amounts of carbon and nitrogen may have been present in the form of carbon monoxide (CO) and molecular nitrogen (N), instead of methane and ammonia. The moons that formed in such a subnebula would contain less water ice (with CO and N trapped as clathrate) and more rock, explaining the higher density.

title: Naming of moons

text: The Roman numbering scheme of Uranus' moons was in a state of flux for a considerable time. Sir William Herschel thought he had discovered up to six moons and maybe even a ring. For nearly fifty years, Herschel's instrument was the only one the moons had been seen with. In the 1840s, better instruments and a more favourable position of Uranus in the sky led to sporadic indications of satellites additional to Titania and Oberon. Publications hesitated between William Herschel's designations (where Titania and Oberon are Uranus II and IV) and William Lassell's (where they are sometimes I and II). With the confirmation of Ariel and Umbriel, Lassell numbered the moons I through IV from Uranus outward, and this finally stuck.

title: Moons of Uranus

text: Uranus was the last giant planet without any known irregular moons, but since 1997 nine distant irregular moons have been identified using ground-based telescopes.[3] Two more small inner moons, Cupid and Mab, were discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope in 2003.[12] As of 2016, the moon Margaret was the last Uranian moon discovered, and its characteristics were published in October 2003.[13]

title: Moons of Uranus

text: At 162km, Puck is the largest of the inner moons of Uranus and the only one imaged by Voyager 2 in any detail. Puck and Mab are the two outermost inner satellites of Uranus. All inner moons are dark objects; their geometrical albedo is less than 10%.[21] They are composed of water ice contaminated with a dark material, probably radiation-processed organics.[22]

title: Moons of Uranus

text: The path of the Sun in the local sky over the course of a local day during Uranus's and its major moons' summer solstice is quite different from that seen on most other Solar System worlds. The major moons have almost exactly the same rotational axial tilt as Uranus (their axes are parallel to that of Uranus).[2] The Sun would appear to follow a circular path around Uranus's celestial pole in the sky, at the closest about 7 degrees from it.[lower-alpha 3] Near the equator, it would be seen nearly due north or due south (depending on the season). At latitudes higher than 7°, the Sun would trace a circular path about 15 degrees in diameter in the sky, and never set.

title: Moons of Uranus

text: As of 2016, Uranus is known to have 13 inner moons.[12] Their orbits lie inside that of Miranda. All inner moons are intimately connected with the rings of Uranus, which probably resulted from the fragmentation of one or several small inner moons.[19] The two innermost moons (Cordelia and Ophelia) are shepherds of Uranus's ε ring, whereas the small moon Mab is a source of Uranus's outermost μ ring.[12] There may be two additional small (2–7km in radius) undiscovered shepherd moons located about 100km exterior to Uranus' α and β rings.[20]

title: Titania (moon)

text: Titania is thought to have formed from an accretion disc or subnebula; a disc of gas and dust that either existed around Uranus for some time after its formation or was created by the giant impact that most likely gave Uranus its large obliquity. The precise composition of the subnebula is not known; however, the relatively high density of Titania and other Uranian moons compared to the moons of Saturn indicates that it may have been relatively water-poor. Significant amounts of nitrogen and carbon may have been present in the form of carbon monoxide and N instead of ammonia and methane. The moons that formed in such a subnebula would contain less water ice (with CO and N trapped as a clathrate) and more rock, explaining their higher density.

title: Moons of Uranus

text: As of 2005 Uranus is known to have nine irregular moons, which orbit it at a distance much greater than that of Oberon, the furthest of the large moons. All the irregular moons are probably captured objects that were trapped by Uranus soon after its formation.[3] The diagram illustrates the orbits of those irregular moons discovered so far. The moons above the X axis are prograde, those beneath are retrograde. The radius of the Uranian Hill sphere is approximately 73million km.[3]

title: Moons of Uranus

text: The first two moons to be discovered were Titania and Oberon, which were spotted by Sir William Herschel on January 11, 1787, six years after he had discovered the planet itself. Later, Herschel thought he had discovered up to six moons (see below) and perhaps even a ring. For nearly 50years, Herschel's instrument was the only one with which the moons had been seen.[4] In the 1840s, better instruments and a more favorable position of Uranus in the sky led to sporadic indications of satellites additional to Titania and Oberon. Eventually, the next two moons, Ariel and Umbriel, were discovered by William Lassell in 1851.[5] The Roman numbering scheme of Uranus's moons was in a state of flux for a considerable time, and publications hesitated between Herschel's designations (where Titania and Oberon are Uranus II and IV) and William Lassell's (where they are sometimes I and II).[6] With the confirmation of Ariel and Umbriel, Lassell numbered the moons I through IV from Uranus outward, and this finally stuck.[7] In 1852, Herschel's son John Herschel gave the four then-known moons their names.[8]


query: When did Paul I and Sophie Dorothea get married?

text: Sophie Dorothea arrived in St Petersburg that September, converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, and took the name Maria Feodorovna. She married Paul on 26 September 1776. In spite of her husband's difficult character, Maria Feodorovna made a success of her marriage. During the long reign of her mother-in-law, the Russian Empress, Catherine II, Maria and Paul were completely excluded from any political influence, as mother and son mistrusted each other. Maria Feodorovna sided with her husband and lost the initial affection Catherine II had for her. Paul and Maria were forced to live in isolation at Gatchina, but they were devoted to each other and had ten children including: Tsar Alexander I, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, Grand Duchess Maria of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Queen Catherine of Wurttemberg and Queen Anna Pavlovna of the Netherlands.

text: His daughter, Sophie Dorothea, married Emperor Paul I of Russia and became Empress Marie Feodorovna. The Empress was mother to (among others) Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I of Russia as well as Queen Anna Paulowna of the Netherlands (from whom the current Dutch royal family is descended) and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, great-grandmother of German Emperor William II.

title: Alexander I of Russia

text: Alexander I (, Aleksandr Pavlovich; – ) reigned as Emperor of Russia between 1801 and 1825. He was the oldest son of Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. Alexander was the first Russian King of partitioned Poland, reigning from 1815 to 1825, as well as the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland, reigning from 1809 to 1825.

text: Maria Feodorovna (Russian: Мария Фёдоровна; née Duchess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg; 25 October 1759 – 5 November 1828 [OS 24 October]) was Empress consort of Russia as the second wife of Tsar Paul I.

title: Duke George of Oldenburg

text: On 3 August 1809, George married Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia, the fourth daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg and favorite sister of the Emperor Alexander I of Russia. The events behind their marriage began when Napoleon Bonaparte, hoping to secure a Russian alliance as well as a male heir, hinted his desire to marry Catherine after finalizing his divorce with Empress Joséphine. This so horrified the Russian imperial family that Catherine's mother immediately arranged her marriage to her cousin, Duke George. The day the marriage occurred, Duke George received the style "Imperial Highness" and was appointed the governor-general of the three central provinces of Tver, Yaroslavl and Novgorod.

title: Dorothea of Denmark, Duchess of Mecklenburg

text: Dorothea of Denmark (1528 – 11 November 1575), was a Danish princess and a Duchess consort of Mecklenburg. She was the daughter of king Frederick I of Denmark and Sophie of Pomerania. She was married to Christopher, Duke of Mecklenburg-Gadebusch in 1573.

title: Sophie Webster

text: Sophie's friend Amber Kalirai (Nikki Patel) takes her to a lesbian bar. Sophie tells Amber she wants to be with Sian and not to tell Sian where they went in case she gets the wrong idea. A few weeks later, Sian goes on holiday with her mum and Amber takes Sophie out again. Amber spikes Sophie's drink with vodka to help her loosen up and when a lad tries chatting Sophie up, Amber steps in and says that she is her girlfriend before kissing her. Amber tells Sophie the kiss was only to make the lad go away but Sophie is confused about her feelings, telling Sunita that she liked it and did not want it to end. Sunita tells Sophie the kiss did not mean anything to Amber and to focus on her relationship with Sian. Feeling guilty and taking Sunita's advice, Sophie proposes to Sian when she comes home from holiday early. Sian accepts and Sophie tells Sally and Kevin they are engaged, but they tell Sophie they would not give her permission to marry. Sophie asks Sian to talk to their parents again about getting married. They talk to Sally but she tells them they are too young and they do not have her permission. Desperate to get married to make her feelings for Amber go away, Sophie tells Sian if they can not get married in Weatherfield, they should go to Gretna Green instead. They go to the coach station but Sally and Rosie arrive, and Sally tells Sophie she will let them get married in four weeks in Weatherfield as long as Kevin agrees too. Sophie and Sian are delighted. The wedding day soon approaches, and on the hen night, Amber tells Sophie not to marry Sian as she likes Sophie as a friend and does not want her making a mistake. She even tries to kiss her, but is stopped by Sunita, who then tells Kevin that Sophie is having doubts about getting married. However, on the wedding day, Sophie tells Kevin that she still wants to marry Sian. When they arrive at the church, Sian says her vows very well, but Sophie stumbles on hers. Kevin tells her that she does not have to do this and slips out that she told Sunita she was not ready. The whole church are confused and Sian begs to know what is going on, to which Sophie admits she can not do it. Sian flees the church in tears. Sian leaves her and Weatherfield, leaving Sophie breaking down on the cobbles hysterically, shouting to Sian that she loves her.

title: Duke Alexander of Württemberg (1771–1833)

text: Duke Alexander of Württemberg (Mömpelgard/Montbéliard, then Württemberg (now France), 5 May 1771 – Gotha, Thuringia, Germany, 4 July 1833) was a Duke of Württemberg. The son of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and of Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. His sister Sophie Dorothea married Tsar Paul I of Russia.

text: In 1773, Sophie Dorothea was among the group of German Princesses considered as possible wives of the heir to the Russian throne, the future Tsar Paul I. However, Sophie of Württemberg was not yet fourteen years old at the time, and Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, a princess of a more appropriate age, was chosen instead.

title: Anna Sophie of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

text: John and Dorothea Maria were parents to Ernst I, Duke of Saxe Coburg. He married his cousin Elisabeth Sophie of Saxe-Altenburg. As a result, their son Frederick I inherited both Duchies as the Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg in 1675.

title: List of grandchildren of Paul I of Russia

text: Through his grandchildren, Paul I of Russia is an ancestor of many European royals.Paul I, with his wife Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) had the following grandchildren:

title: Countess Palatine Dorothea Sophie of Neuburg

text: Her husband died on 6 September 1693, only a month after the death of their son. On 7 December 1696, Dorothea married Odoardo's half-brother, Francesco Farnese, who had become Duke of Parma when his father died in 1694.

title: Peter I, Grand Duke of Oldenburg

text: On 6 June 1781, he married Duchess Frederica of Württemberg, the second daughter of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and his wife, Friederike Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Frederica's sister, Sophie, was the wife of Crown Prince Paul of Russia (the future Tsar Paul I. Peter and Frederica became the parents of two sons: August (born in 1783) and George (born in 1784).

title: Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse

text: In 1776, he became engaged to Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, eldest daughter of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg. The engagement was broken off so that Sophia Dorothea could marry Louis's recently widowed brother-in-law Tsarevich Paul Petrovich, son and heir of Catherine II "the Great", Empress of Russia. He received a monetary compensation when the engagement was broken.

text: Born Duchess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, she was a daughter of Friedrich II Eugen, Duke of Württemberg and his wife, Friederike Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. She belonged to a junior branch of the House of Württemberg and grew up in Montbéliard receiving an excellent education for her time and station. In 1776, when Grand Duke Paul (the future Paul I of Russia), became a widower, Sophie Dorothea was chosen by Frederick II of Prussia, her maternal great uncle, and by Empress Catherine II of Russia, as the ideal candidate to be Paul’s second wife. They met in a state dinner in Berlin and their engagement was quickly arranged.

text: Maria Feodorovna married Paul on 7 October 1776. Their marriage resulted in the birth of ten children:

text: In December 1777, Maria gave birth to the first of her ten children, the future Tsar Alexander I. Just three months later, Catherine took the newborn to raise him without interference from the parents. When a second son was born in April 1779, Catherine did the same thing. This caused bitter animosity with Maria, as she and Paul were only allowed weekly visits. For the next four years, the couple did not have any more children. Deprived of raising her eldest sons, Maria Feodorovna had to occupy herself decorating the Palace of Pavlovsk, Catherine's gift to celebrate the birth of her first grandson. Maria's efforts would produce one of the most beautiful estates in all of Russia.

title: Mamma Mia!

text: Suddenly, Sophie calls a halt to the proceedings. She isn't ready to get married and Sky agrees with Sophie about not getting married. Sam seizes his chance and proposes to Donna in order to prevent the wedding preparations from going to waste. He explains that he loved her, even when he left to get married. It is revealed that he called off the wedding with his fiancée and came back to the island, only to be told that Donna was going out with another man (Bill). He went back, married his fiancée and had children but he got divorced. Surprisingly, Donna accepts ("I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do"). In the end, Sam and Donna are married, and at the end of the night, Sophie and Sky depart on a round-the-world tour ("I Have a Dream").

text: The Russian Empress, Catherine II, was delighted with the idea. The Princess of Württemberg shared with her not only a similar education, but also the same original name and place of birth. Frederick II arranged the marriage and Sophie was summoned to Berlin, where Paul joined her. They met for the first time at a state dinner given in honor of his arrival in Berlin. Sophie was eager to please; and, having learned that Paul's tastes were serious, she spoke with him about geometry during their first interview. The next day, she wrote a glowing letter to a friend in which she declared that she was "madly in love." Paul was as happy with the young princess as she was with him: "I found my intended to be such as I could have dreamed of," Paul wrote to his mother, "She is tall, shapely, intelligent, quick-witted, and not at all shy."[3] Sophie’s first impressions were no less enthusiastic: "I am more than content," she wrote. "Never, dear friend, could I be happier. The Grand Duke could not be more kind. I pride myself on the fact that my dear bridegroom loves me a great deal, and this makes me very, very fortunate." By early fall, she had fallen deeply in love with her future husband. "I cannot go to bed, my dear and adored Prince, without telling you once again that I love and adore you madly," she wrote to Paul. Soon after arriving at St Petersburg that September, she converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, took the name "Maria Feodorovna," and was granted the title Grand Duchess of Russia, with the style Imperial Highness. The wedding took place on 26 September 1776.

text: Clever, talented, purposeful and energetic, Maria Feodorovna was a nearly perfect Imperial wife, and Paul for many years was a model husband deeply in love with the woman he married.

title: Sophie Ramsay

text: Sophie begins feeling isolated in the hospital and she asks to go home, but Paul arranges for her to go to rehab in Sydney. Sophie returns a few weeks later, using crutches to help her walk. Sophie tells Chris that she blames herself for the crash and he tries to reassure her that it was not her fault. He also tells her not to shut her friends out. Sophie gives up music, but helps Chris to learn the guitar. She later learns that Chris could play all along and that he was helping her instead. Sophie gets herself a job at the local cafe, Grease Monkey's, which annoys Paul. He later employs her as a cleaner at Lassiter's Hotel instead. Sophie tells Kate and Paul that she has applied to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. However, she is upset when she learns that her application was rejected and that Paul told the conservatorium about her exclusion from school. Sophie then successfully applies to the Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and manages to get Paul to sign the application form, by tricking him. When Paul finds out what Sophie has done, he threatens to ring the school and tell them. However, both Sophie and Kate talk him out of it. Sophie says goodbye to Callum and Rani and she leaves Ramsay Street, along with Andrew and Natasha. A year later, Sophie returns for Kate's birthday and is delighted when Kate gets engaged to Mark. Shortly afterwards, Kate is shot and she dies, devastating Sophie. After attending the funeral, Sophie goes to visit Harry in the United States during his basketball tour.

title: Sophie Elisabeth of Anhalt-Dessau

text: Sophie Elisabeth was a member of the House of Ascania. Her parents were John George I of Anhalt-Dessau and his first wife, Dorothea of Mansfeld-Arnstein (1561-1594), daughter of John Albert VI of Mansfeld-Arnstein. Sophie Elisabeth had four full siblings, and eleven half-siblings (from her father’s second marriage to Dorothea of Simmern). These included John Casimir, Eleonore Dorothea, Sibylle Christine, George Aribert and Susanna Margarete.

title: Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna of Russia

text: Grand Duchess Elena of Russia, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg (; 24 December 1784 [OS 13 December] – 24 September 1803) was a daughter of Grand Duke, later Tsar Paul I of Russia and his second wife Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. After marrying the son and heir of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin she ceased to use her Russian title.

title: Yevdokiya Yusupova

text: After having attended the wedding of Paul I of Russia to Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) on 26 September 1776, she refused to return to Mitau. The divorce was issued on 27 April 1778.

title: Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

text: Augusta was the second daughter of Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.

title: George Albert I, Count of Erbach-Schönberg

text: In Frankfurt am Main on 26 July 1635 George Albert I married thirdly with Elisabeth Dorothea (27 August 1617 – 12 November 1655), a daughter of George Frederick II, Count of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg in Schillingsfürst and his wife Dorothea Sophie of Solms-Hohensolms. They had nine children:

text: Ancestors of Main Page16. Eberhard III, Duke of Württemberg8. Frederick Charles, Duke of Württemberg-Winnental17. Wild- and Rhinegravine Anna Katharina of Salm-Kyrburg4. Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg18. Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach9. Margravine Eleonore Juliane of Brandenburg-Ansbach19. Countess Sophie Margarete of Oettingen-Oettingen2. Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg20. Eugen Alexander Franz, Prince of Thurn and Taxis10. Anselm Franz, Prince of Thurn and Taxis21. Princess Anna Adelheid of Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg5. Princess Marie Auguste of Thurn and Taxis22. Ferdinand August, Prince of Lobkowicz11. Princess Maria Ludovika of Lobkowicz23. Princess Maria Anna of Baden-Baden1. Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg24. Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg12. Philip William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt25. Princess Sophia Dorothea of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg6. Frederick William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt26. John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau13. Princess Johanna Charlotte of Anhalt-Dessau27. Countess Henriette Catherine of Nassau3. Princess Friederike of Brandenburg-Schwedt28. Frederick I of Prussia14. Frederick William I of Prussia29. Princess Sophia Charlotte of Hanover7. Princess Sophia Dorothea of Prussia30. George I of Great Britain15. Princess Sophia Dorothea of Hanover31. Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle

title: Grand Duchess Olga Pavlovna of Russia

text: Grand Duchess Olga Pavlovna of Russia (; ) was a "Grand Duchess of Russia" as the second youngest daughter and seventh child of Emperor Paul I of Russia and his empress consort, Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.

title: William I of Württemberg

text: On 24 January 1816, in Saint Petersburg, he married his first cousin, Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia (1788–1819), daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia (1754–1801) and Princess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg (1759–1828). The couple had two children:

text: Sophie was engaged to Prince Louis of Hesse, the brother of Tsar Paul’s first wife, but when the Russian heir to the throne became a widower in 1776, Frederick II of Prussia proposed Sophie as the ideal candidate to be Paul's second wife. Sophie's former fiancé, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, received a monetary compensation when the engagement was broken. Sophie was sixteen years old and pleased with the prospect of being Empress of Russia. When her mother lamented the unfortunate destiny of some Russian sovereigns, she replied that her only concern was to make her way in her new country quickly and successfully.


query: What is the origin of the word muscle?

title: Muscle

text: The term muscle is derived from the Latin musculus meaning "little mouse" perhaps because of the shape of certain muscles or because contracting muscles look like mice moving under the skin.[3][4]

title: Subvocalization

text: Typically, subvocalizing is an inherent part of reading and understanding a word. Micro-muscle tests suggest that full and permanent elimination of subvocalizing is impossible. This may originate in the way people learn to read by associating the sight of words with their spoken sounds. Sound associations for words are indelibly imprinted on the nervous system—even of deaf people, since they will have associated the word with the mechanism for causing the sound or a sign in a particular sign language.

title: Muscle

text: In contrast to this argument for a single origin of muscle cells, Steinmetz et al. argue that molecular markers such as the myosin II protein used to determine this single origin of striated muscle actually predate the formation of muscle cells. This author uses an example of the contractile elements present in the porifera or sponges that do truly lack this striated muscle containing this protein. Furthermore, Steinmetz et al. present evidence for a polyphyletic origin of striated muscle cell development through their analysis of morphological and molecular markers that are present in bilaterians and absent in cnidarians, ctenophores, and bilaterians. Steimetz et al. showed that the traditional morphological and regulatory markers such as actin, the ability to couple myosin side chains phosphorylation to higher concentrations of the positive concentrations of calcium, and other MyHC elements are present in all metazoans not just the organisms that have been shown to have muscle cells. Thus, the usage of any of these structural or regulatory elements in determining whether or not the muscle cells of the cnidarians and ctenophores are similar enough to the muscle cells of the bilaterians to confirm a single lineage is questionable according to Steinmetz et al. Furthermore, Steinmetz et al. explain that the orthologues of the MyHc genes that have been used to hypothesize the origin of striated muscle occurred through a gene duplication event that predates the first true muscle cells (meaning striated muscle), and they show that the MyHc genes are present in the sponges that have contractile elements but no true muscle cells. Furthermore, Steinmetz et all showed that the localization of this duplicated set of genes that serve both the function of facilitating the formation of striated muscle genes and cell regulation and movement genes were already separated into striated myhc and non-muscle myhc. This separation of the duplicated set of genes is shown through the localization of the striated myhc to the contractile vacuole in sponges while the non-muscle myhc was more diffusely expressed during developmental cell shape and change. Steinmetz et al. found a similar pattern of localization in cnidarians with except with the cnidarian N. vectensis having this striated muscle marker present in the smooth muscle of the digestive track. Thus, Steinmetz et al. argue that the pleisiomorphic trait of the separated orthologues of myhc cannot be used to determine the monophylogeny of muscle, and additionally argue that the presence of a striated muscle marker in the smooth muscle of this cnidarian shows a fundamentally different mechanism of muscle cell development and structure in cnidarians.[28]

title: Embouchure

text: Embouchure or lipping is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument. This includes shaping the lips to the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument or the mouthpiece of a brass instrument. The word is of French origin and is related to the root "", 'mouth'. Proper embouchure allows instrumentalists to play their instrument at its full range with a full, clear tone and without strain or damage to their muscles.

title: English orthography

text: There was also a period when the spelling of a small number of words was altered in what is now regarded as a misguided attempt to make them conform to what were perceived to be the etymological origins of the words. For example, the letter "b" was added to "debt" (originally "dette") in an attempt to link it to the Latin "debitum", and the letter "s" in "island" is a misplaced attempt to link it to Latin "insula" instead of the Old English word "īġland", which is the true origin of the English word. The letter "p" in "ptarmigan" has no etymological justification whatsoever, only seeking to invoke Greek despite being a Gaelic word.

title: Plantar interossei muscles

text: The three plantar interosseous muscles are unipennate and originate on a single metatarsal bone. The three muscles originate on the medial aspect of metatarsals III-V. The muscles cross the metatarsophalangeal joint of toes III-V so the insertions correspond with the origin and there is no crossing between toes.

title: Motor neuron

text: In invertebrates, depending on the neurotransmitter released and the type of receptor it binds, the response in the muscle fiber could be either excitatory or inhibitory. For vertebrates, however, the response of a muscle fiber to a neurotransmitter can only be excitatory, in other words, contractile. Muscle relaxation and inhibition of muscle contraction in vertebrates is obtained only by inhibition of the motor neuron itself. This is how muscle relaxants work by acting on the motor neurons that innervate muscles (by decreasing their electrophysiological activity) or on cholinergic neuromuscular junctions, rather than on the muscles themselves.

title: Muscle Museum

text: The title likely derives from the fact that the words "muscle" and "museum" come immediately before and after the word "muse" in some dictionaries.

title: Demai

text: There are several opinions concerning the word's etymology. According to Maimonides and Rabbi Obadiah ben Abraham, the word originates from a contraction of the two Aramaic words meaning "doubtful" (literally, "what is this?"). Another possibility is that the word originates from a corruption of the Hebrew word , "things holy", in this case referring to something which may still contain the elements of "things holy".

title: Trapezius

text:
The trapezius muscle resembles a trapezium (trapezoid in American English), or diamond-shaped quadrilateral. The word "spinotrapezius" refers to the human trapezius, although it is not commonly used in modern texts. In other mammals, it refers to a portion of the analogous muscle. Similarly, the term "tri-axle back plate" was historically used to describe the trapezius muscle.
The "superior" or "upper" (or descending) fibers of the trapezius originate from the spinous process of C7, the external occipital protuberance, the medial third of the superior nuchal line of the occipital bone (both in the back of the head), and the ligamentum nuchae. From this origin they proceed downward and laterally to be inserted into the posterior border of the lateral third of the clavicle.

title: Muscle Beach

text: In 1989, the City of Santa Monica officially rededicated the original Muscle Beach and today it serves gymnasts, acrobats and youth with an extensive gymnastics training area. Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department has continued the primary barbell, weightlifting and bodybuilding aspects, and events of the original Muscle Beach fame at the Venice weight pen. In 1987, the City of Los Angeles officially dedicated "Muscle Beach Venice" with the added word of "Venice" in the title to distinguish it from the original "Muscle Beach" in Santa Monica.

title: Muscles of the hand

text: The intrinsic muscle groups are the thenar (thumb) and hypothenar (little finger) muscles; the interossei muscles (four dorsally and three volarly) originating between the metacarpal bones; and the lumbrical muscles arising from the deep flexor (and are special because they have no bony origin) to insert on the dorsal extensor hood mechanism. Palmaris brevis which is a superficial muscle and adductor pollicis are also intrinsic muscles.

title: Tendon transfer

text:
The donor tendon must also be expendable. In other words, it must not result in functional deficit after transfer. The remaining muscles must have enough level of strength to account for the loss of the original function of the donor muscle. Transfers can generally be classified into either power or positional transfers. Power transfers are done to perform motion, and therefore requires relatively more powerful donor muscles. Positional transfers, on the other hand, do not require powerful donors. The strength of the antagonist muscle should be similar to the donor to avoid overcorrection and to maintain correct posture.
Tendon excursion, or distance a tendon travels upon movement, should be similar to that of the recipient to adequately restore the function.

title: Targeted reinnervation

text: The first surgical patient was a bilateral shoulder disarticulation amputee. Both arms were entirely amputated at the shoulder level, with only the shoulder blades remaining. The pectoral muscles were chosen targets because they were close to the shoulder, and they were also biologically non-functional due to detachment from the amputated arm. The pectoral muscles were first denervated by cutting the original nerves that innervate them. The proximal ends of the original nerves were ligated to prevent them from reinnervating the pectoral muscle. Then the remnant arm nerves (brachial plexus) were transferred into the pectoral muscles. The musculocutaneous nerve was transferred to the clavicular head of the pectoralis major muscle; the median nerve was transferred to the upper sternal of the pectoralis major muscle; the radial nerve was transferred to the lower sternal head of the pectoralis major muscle. The pectoralis minor muscle was translocated from under the pectorialis major muscle to the lateral chest wall, so that its EMG signals would not interfere with those of the pectoralis major muscle, and it is also a fourth muscle target. The ulnar nerve was then transferred to the moved pectoralis minor muscle. The musculocutaneous, median, radial, and ulnar nerves (brachial plexus) were sewn onto the distal ends of the original pectoral muscle nerve fascicles and onto the muscle itself. Subcutaneous fat over the pectoral muscle was removed so that the electrodes can be as close to the muscle as possible to obtain optimal EMG signals.

title: Enthesis

text: "Enthesis" is rooted in the Ancient Greek word, "ἔνθεσις" or "énthesis," meaning “putting in," or "insertion." This refers to the role of the enthesis as the site of attachment of bones with tendons or ligaments. Relatedly, in muscle terminology, the insertion is the site of attachment at the end with predominant movement or action (opposite of the origin). Thus the words ("enthesis" and "insertion" [of muscle]) are proximal in the semantic field, but "insertion" in reference to muscle can refer to any relevant aspect of the site (i.e., the attachment per se, the bone, the tendon, or the entire area), whereas "enthesis" refers to the attachment per se and to ligamentous attachments as well as tendinous ones.

title: Temple (anatomy)

text: Regarding the temporalis muscle: in English, this muscle’s name is the time muscle. The word temporalis comes from the Latin word tempus meaning “time.” The muscle covers the temporal bone, or time bone, which received its name because the hair of the head covering this bone is often the first hair to turn gray during the aging process. Therefore, this region is the first to show the effects of aging.

title: Anatomical terminology

text: Muscle action that moves the axial skeleton work over a joint with an origin and insertion of the muscle on respective side. The insertion is on the bone deemed to move towards the origin during muscle contraction. Muscles are often present that engage in several actions of the joint; able to perform for example both flexion and extension of the forearm as in the biceps and triceps respectively. This is not only to be able to revert actions of muscles, but also brings on stability of the actions though muscle coactivation.

title: Herpetoculture

text: The origin of the word "herpetoculture" is credited to Tom Huff, who devised the word to distinguish what he, as a self-described "herpetoculturist", was doing—working to keeping reptiles and amphibians alive and healthy—from what herpetologists of that era were generally doing, namely, collecting specimens for preservation in museum collections. The word itself comes from the Greek language origin “herpien,” which means “to creep”.

title: Mylohyoid muscle

text: The mylohyoid muscle is a paired muscle running from the mandible to the hyoid bone, forming the floor of the oral cavity of the mouth. It is named after its two attachments near the molar teeth (""mylo"" comes from the Greek word for "molar"). These muscles are mesodermal in embryologic origin. The mylohyoid muscle is derived from the first pharyngeal arch.

title: Smooth muscle

text: The embryological origin of smooth muscle is usually of mesodermal origin, after the creation of muscle fibers in a process known as myogenesis. However, the smooth muscle within the Aorta and Pulmonary arteries (the Great Arteries of the heart) is derived from ectomesenchyme of neural crest origin, although coronary artery smooth muscle is of mesodermal origin.

title: Leukotriene

text:
The name "leukotriene", introduced by Swedish biochemist Bengt Samuelsson in 1979, comes from the words "leukocyte" and "triene" (indicating the compound's three conjugated double bonds).
What would be later named leukotriene C, "slow reaction smooth muscle-stimulating substance" (SRS) was originally described between 1938 and 1940 by Feldberg and Kellaway.

title: Pectineus muscle

text: The pectineus muscle (, from the Latin word "pecten", meaning comb) is a flat, quadrangular muscle, situated at the anterior (front) part of the upper and medial (inner) aspect of the thigh. The pectineus muscle is the most anterior adductor of the hip. The muscle does adduct and medially rotate the thigh but its primary function is hip flexion.

title: Sebecus

text: The jaw muscles of "Sebecus" were likely similar to those of living crocodilians, but the distinctively deep skull of "Sebecus" indicates that the muscles were longer. In "Sebecus", the shape of the skull and jaws provides more room for adductor muscles, or muscles that close the jaws. The supratemporal fenestrae at the top of the skull are relatively wide, allowing for the passage of large muscles. In crocodilians, the depressor muscle that opens the jaws originates near the top of the skull and inserts into a projection at the back of the jaw called the retroarticular process. Living crocodilians have a straight retroarticular process at the back of the jaw and a low point of origin for the depressor muscle. "Sebecus", with its deeper skull, has a higher point of origin for the depressor, but the retroarticular process curves upward to make the length of the depressor about the same as it is in crocodilians. Like living crocodilians, the depressor muscle of "Sebecus" was relatively underdeveloped. Therefore, while the closure of the jaws would have been very strong, the ability to open the jaws would be much weaker.

title: Muscle

text: Schmid and Seipel argue that the origin of muscle cells is a monophyletic trait that occurred concurrently with the development of the digestive and nervous systems of all animals and that this origin can be traced to a single metazoan ancestor in which muscle cells are present. They argue that molecular and morphological similarities between the muscles cells in cnidaria and ctenophora are similar enough to those of bilaterians that there would be one ancestor in metazoans from which muscle cells derive. In this case, Schmid and Seipel argue that the last common ancestor of bilateria, ctenophora, and cnidaria was a triploblast or an organism with three germ layers and that diploblasty, meaning an organism with two germ layers, evolved secondarily due to their observation of the lack of mesoderm or muscle found in most cnidarians and ctenophores. By comparing the morphology of cnidarians and ctenophores to bilaterians, Schmid and Seipel were able to conclude that there were myoblast-like structures in the tentacles and gut of some species of cnidarians and in the tentacles of ctenophores. Since this is a structure unique to muscle cells, these scientists determined based on the data collected by their peers that this is a marker for striated muscles similar to that observed in bilaterians. The authors also remark that the muscle cells found in cnidarians and ctenophores are often contests due to the origin of these muscle cells being the ectoderm rather than the mesoderm or mesendoderm. The origin of true muscles cells is argued by others to be the endoderm portion of the mesoderm and the endoderm. However, Schmid and Seipel counter this skepticism about whether or not the muscle cells found in ctenophores and cnidarians are true muscle cells by considering that cnidarians develop through a medusa stage and polyp stage. They observe that in the hydrozoan medusa stage there is a layer of cells that separate from the distal side of the ectoderm to form the striated muscle cells in a way that seems similar to that of the mesoderm and call this third separated layer of cells the ectocodon. They also argue that not all muscle cells are derived from the mesendoderm in bilaterians with key examples being that in both the eye muscles of vertebrates and the muscles of spiralians these cells derive from the ectodermal mesoderm rather than the endodermal mesoderm. Furthermore, Schmid and Seipel argue that since myogenesis does occur in cnidarians with the help of molecular regulatory elements found in the specification of muscles cells in bilaterians that there is evidence for a single origin for striated muscle.[27]

title: List of skeletal muscles of the human body

text:
There are over 600 skeletal muscles within the typical human body. Almost every muscle constitutes one part of a pair of identical bilateral muscles, found on both sides, resulting in approximately 320 pairs of muscles, as presented
in this article. Nevertheless, the exact number is difficult to define because different sources group muscles differently, e.g. regarding what is defined as different parts of a single muscle or as several muscles.

title: Fibrillation

text: The word "fibrillation" () is related to the word "fibril" in the sense of muscle fibrils, the proteins that make up each muscle fiber (muscle cell).

title: Poposaurus

text: The leg musculature of "Poposaurus" was hypothesized in a 2011 study that examined muscle scars on the bones and made inferences based on phylogenetic bracketing. 26 muscles, three ligaments, and two connective tissue structures were described. While the hypothesized muscles of "Poposaurus" share many aspects with those of birds, they are more similar to those of crocodilians. "Poposaurus" is thought to have had a puboischiotibialis muscle, but this muscle is absent in birds and probably non-avian dinosaurs as well. The extensor digitorum brevis was probably present on the foot of "Poposaurus", but not in birds. The puboischiofemoralis externus muscle of "Poposaurus" is also similar to those of living crocodilians. Other aspects of the muscles of "Poposaurus" differ from those of crocodilians. For example, the puboischiofemoralis internus muscle originates on the spine in crocodilians and on the hip in "Poposaurus". The hip origin for this muscle is considered to be the original condition for archosaurs, since it is also seen in birds and non-avian dinosaurs. "Poposaurus" is thought to have had adductor muscles that were even larger than dinosaurs, as their insertion site runs along the entire length of the femur.

title: Tendon transfer

text: The donor muscle must have enough strength (work capacity) to duplicate the recipient function. The work capacity depends upon muscle fibre's length and cross sectional area, which are proportional to muscle mass and volume. In other words, a larger muscle produces more force and a longer muscle has a greater excursion. There are potential factors that may result in loss of muscle strength including postoperative adhesion, difference in vector of motion.

title: FAME Studios

text: FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios is a recording studio located at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, an area of northern Alabama known as the Shoals. Though small and distant from the main recording locations of the American music industry, FAME has produced a large number of hit records and was instrumental in what came to be known as the Muscle Shoals sound. It was started in the 1950s by Rick Hall, known as the Founder of Muscle Shoals Music. The studio, owned by Hall until his death in 2018, is still actively operating. It was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on December 15, 1997, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The 2013 award-winning documentary "Muscle Shoals" features Rick Hall, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (also called The Swampers), and the Muscle Shoals sound originally popularized by FAME.

title: Muscle

text: The gross anatomy of a muscle is the most important indicator of its role in the body. There is an important distinction seen between pennate muscles and other muscles. In most muscles, all the fibers are oriented in the same direction, running in a line from the origin to the insertion. However, In pennate muscles, the individual fibers are oriented at an angle relative to the line of action, attaching to the origin and insertion tendons at each end. Because the contracting fibers are pulling at an angle to the overall action of the muscle, the change in length is smaller, but this same orientation allows for more fibers (thus more force) in a muscle of a given size. Pennate muscles are usually found where their length change is less important than maximum force, such as the rectus femoris.

title: Developmental verbal dyspraxia

text: Developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD), also known as childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), is when children have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what they want to say, but their brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words. The exact cause of this disorder is unknown. Some observations suggest a genetic cause of DVD, as many with the disorder have a family history of communication disorders. There is no cure for DVD, but with appropriate, intensive intervention, people with this motor speech disorder can improve significantly.


query: What states are included in Tornado Alley?

title: Tornado Alley

text: The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, and Minnesota. It is largely a media-driven term although tornado climatologists distinguish peaks in activity in certain areas[2] and storm chasers have long recognized the Great Plains tornado belt.[3]

title: Climate of Alabama

text: Tornadoes occur frequently in Alabama during the spring and fall months, these tornadoes can be devastating and even deadly.– these are common throughout the state, although the peak season for tornadoes varies from the northern to southern parts of the state. Alabama, along with Kansas, has the most reported F5/EF5 tornadoes than any other state – according to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center for the period January 1, 1950, to October 31, 2006. An F5 tornado is the most powerful of its kind. Several long – tracked F5 tornadoes have contributed to Alabama reporting more tornado fatalities than any other state except for Texas and Mississippi. The Super Outbreaks of April 1974 and April 2011 both badly affected Alabama. The northern part of the state – along the Tennessee Valley – is one of the areas in the US most vulnerable to violent tornadoes . The area of Alabama and Mississippi most affected by tornadoes is sometimes referred to as Dixie Alley, as distinct from the Tornado Alley of the Southern Plains. Alabama is one of the few places in the world that has a secondary tornado season (November and December) along with the spring severe weather season.

title: Tornadoes in the United States

text: The Midwestern states are very prone to tornado activity, as they are part of "Tornado Alley." States included in the area that are hit by tornadoes the most are Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. The Midwestern States are often hit by tornadoes during the late spring and early summer months, especially the months of May and June. This is due to the aforementioned air mass moving northward into the Midwest and combining with another air mass that move southward from Canada. This creates unstable air, creating the potential for storms to strike the most during these months. The frequency begins to decrease in the middle of the summer, as the air mass moves northward into the Great Lakes states.

title: Dixie Alley

text: Dixie Alley is part of a region of enhanced tornadic activity extending between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, but tornadoes and outbreaks in the Dixie Alley region exhibit some statistically distinguishable characteristics than the more well known Tornado Alley. Tornadic storms in Dixie Alley are most often high precipitation supercells due to an increase of moisture from proximity to the nearby Gulf of Mexico. The Dixie Alley tornadoes accompanying the HP supercells are often partially or fully wrapped in rain visually impairing the tornadoes to storm spotters and chasers, law enforcement, and the public. Increases of warmth and instability in conjunction with strong wind shear in the Dixie Alley region impacts the times when tornadoes form. In the traditional Tornado Alley, tornadoes most often form from the mid afternoon to early evening. Dixie Alley's instability can be maintained long after sunset due to being adjacent to the Gulf, increasing the frequency of intense nighttime and early morning tornadoes. There is also a less focused tornado season which tends to be most active in early spring and late autumn but can continue throughout the winter and into late spring, which can lead to complacency among residents of the region. The region often is subject to tornadoes much earlier than the general national peak from May and June, usually from February to Mid-April, and several notorious outbreaks have struck during the late winter and early spring and also in late fall. The complacency situation was noted after the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak in February 2008 that hit the Dixie Alley killing 57 people, many people indicated that they had underestimated the threat of severe weather on that day since it was well before the peak of tornado season.

title: Estelline, Texas

text:
According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Estelline has a semi-arid climate, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps.
Estelline, Texas is often referred to as being located at the core of Tornado Alley. Over the years, the location(s) of Tornado Alley have not been clearly defined. No official definition of 'tornado alley' or the geographical area of tornado alley has ever been designated by the National Weather Service Thus, differences of location are the result of the different criteria used.

title: Tornado Alley

text: Tornado Alley is a colloquial term for the area of the United States where tornadoes are most frequent.[1]

title: Dixie Alley

text: Dixie Alley has been subject to numerous tornado outbreaks throughout history, including very intense outbreaks and those of very large spatial and temporal extent. Notorious outbreaks affecting the region include: the Great Natchez Tornado, the 1884 Enigma tornado outbreak, the April 1924 tornado outbreak, the 1932 Deep South tornado outbreak, the 1936 Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak, the April 1957 Southeastern tornado outbreak, the 1984 Carolinas tornado outbreak, and the November 1992 tornado outbreak. The 1974 Super Outbreak also hit the area very hard, producing multiple F5 tornadoes in Alabama, and F4 tornadoes in North Georgia and the Appalachian southwest of North Carolina. More recently the region was hit by the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak followed by the tornado outbreak of April 14–16, 2011, the deadliest since the 2008 outbreak. Two weeks after the April 14–16 event, Dixie Alley was the epicenter of the 2011 Super Outbreak, which was the largest tornado outbreak ever recorded, as well as the fourth-deadliest outbreak in United States history, with over 300 people dead.

title: Canada Tornado Alley

text: Over the years, the location(s) of the Canadian Tornado Alley(s) have been better defined. No complete definition of Canadian Tornado Alley has ever been officially designated and announced by the Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).

title: Illinois

text: Illinois averages approximately 51 days of thunderstorm activity a year, which ranks somewhat above average in the number of thunderstorm days for the United States. Illinois is vulnerable to tornadoes, with an average of 35 occurring annually, which puts much of the state at around five tornadoes per annually. While tornadoes are no more powerful in Illinois than other states, some of Tornado Alley's deadliest tornadoes on record have occurred in the state. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 killed 695 people in three states; 613 of the victims died in Illinois. Other significant high-casualty tornadoes include the 1896 St. Louis – East St. Louis tornado, which killed 111 people in East St. Louis and a May 1917 tornado that killed 101 people in Charleston and Mattoon. Modern developments in storm forecasting and tracking have caused death tolls from tornadoes to decline dramatically, with the 1967 Belvidere – Oak Lawn – Chicago South Side tornado outbreak (58 fatalities) and 1990 Plainfield tornado (29 fatalities) standing out as exceptions. On November 17, 2013, an EF4 tornado touched down and ripped through Washington, Illinois. There were three fatalities.

title: Tornado Alley

text: According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) FAQ,[6] "Tornado Alley" is a term used by the media as a reference to areas that have higher numbers of tornadoes. A study of 1921–1995 tornadoes concluded almost one-fourth of all significant tornadoes occur in this area.[8]

title: Climate of the United States

text: Because of contrasting air masses, the Great Plains, the Midwest, and the southern United States have frequent severe thunderstorms and tornado outbreaks during both the spring and the summer. In central portions of the U.S., tornadoes are more common than anywhere else in the world. They usually can touch down during the spring and the summer. The strip of land from north Texas north to Nebraska and east into Southern Michigan is known as Tornado Alley, where many houses have tornado shelters and where many towns have tornado sirens. Stretching across Mississippi and Alabama, Dixie Alley has experienced both tornadoes and violent thunderstorms, with peak tornado season coming on as early as February and waning by May. Florida also reports many tornadoes, but these rarely are very strong. The southern US has a second tornado season during the autumn. Generally, the area at greatest risk for tornadoes migrates northward from February to June, peaking in the Gulf States in February and March, the Ohio Valley and lower Midwest in April, southern and central Plains and central Midwest in May, and Northern Plains and upper Midwest (Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) in June.

title: Tornado Alley

text: Canada Tornado Alley Dixie Alley Hailstorm Alley Hurricane Alley List of tornadoes and tornado outbreaks List of tornadoes by calendar day Tornado climatology

title: Tornado preparedness

text: There were no building codes requiring tornado shelters nor specifically designed to prevent tornado damage until the 2011 Joplin tornado prompted a local ordinance requiring hurricane ties or similar fasteners. The state of Oklahoma adopted the minimum U.S. standard that year for the first time, but did not add high-wind protections like those in Florida designed to protect against hurricanes. Other states in Tornado Alley have no statewide building codes. The chance of any given location in Tornado Alley getting hit by an F-2 tornado (strong enough to do major structural damage and exceeding the 90 mph guideline for straightline winds) is about 1 every 4,000-5,000 years; in other areas the annual probability is one in several million. The most stringent building codes only require earthquake strengthening for a 1 in every 500-1,000 year probability.

title: Tornado Alley

text: States such as Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and western Ohio are sometimes included in Tornado Alley.[4] Research suggests that tornadoes are becoming more frequent in the northern parts of Tornado Alley where it reaches the Canadian prairies.[5]

title: Tornado climatology

text: Tornadoes have been recorded on all continents except Antarctica and are most common in the middle latitudes where conditions are often favorable for convective storm development.[1] The United States has the most tornadoes of any country, as well as the strongest and most violent tornadoes. A large portion of these tornadoes form in an area of the central United States popularly known as Tornado Alley.[2] Other areas of the world that have frequent tornadoes include significant portions of Europe, South Africa, Philippines, Bangladesh, parts of Argentina, Uruguay, and southern and southeast Brazil, northern Mexico, New Zealand, and far eastern Asia.[3][4]

title: Tornadoes in the United States

text: Most tornadoes in the United States occur east of the Rocky Mountains. The Great Plains, the Midwest, the Mississippi Valley and the southern United States are all areas that are vulnerable to tornadoes. They are relatively rare west of the Rockies and are also less frequent in the northeastern states. Tornado Alley is a colloquial term for an area particularly prone to tornadoes. There is no officially defined 'Tornado Alley' – at its broadest this area stretches from northern Texas to Canada with its core centered on Oklahoma, Kansas and northern Texas. Another highly significant region – colloquially known as Dixie Alley – is the southern United States and particularly the northern and central parts of Alabama and Mississippi. Florida is one of the most tornado-prone states. However, Florida tornadoes only rarely approach the strength of those that occur elsewhere.

title: Nodaway County, Missouri

text: Located in Tornado Alley, many tornadoes have struck the county, including an F4 tornado on April 10, 1979, which obliterated the town of Braddyville, Iowa across the county line. Tornadoes have damaged two of the county's largest buildings, the Administration Building on the campus of Northwest Missouri State University and Conception Abbey. The 1881 Hopkins tornado is one of the first recorded F5 tornadoes.

title: Dixie Alley

text: Dixie Alley is a nickname sometimes given to areas of the southern United States that are particularly vulnerable to strong or violent tornadoes. This is distinct from the better known Tornado Alley and has a high frequency of strong, long-track tornadoes that move at higher speeds (50+ miles per hour). The term was coined by NSSFC Director Allen Pearson after witnessing a tornado outbreak which included more than 9 long-track, violent tornadoes that killed 121 on February 21, 1971. The specific characteristics of the Southeast led to VORTEX-SE, a field project studying tornadogenesis, diagnosis and forecasting, in addition to social science implications, and examines both supercellular tornadoes and those resulting from quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) thunderstorm structures.

title: Tornado Alley

text: The southeastern United States is particularly prone to violent, long track tornadoes. Much of the housing in this region is less robust compared to other areas in the United States, and many people live in mobile homes. As a result, tornado-related casualties in the southern United States are particularly higher. Significant tornadoes occur less frequently than in the traditionally recognized tornado alley, however, very severe and expansive outbreaks occur every few years.

title: Tornado Alley

text: Over the years, the location(s) of Tornado Alley have not been clearly defined. No definition of tornado alley has ever been officially designated by the National Weather Service (NWS).[6] Thus, differences in location are the result of the different criteria used.[6][7]

title: Climate of Argentina

text: Argentina experiences frequent tornados each year. Tornados occur in the South American "tornado alley" ("Spanish: Pasillo de los Tornados"), which includes the provinces of Entre Ríos, Córdoba Province, Santa Fe, La Pampa and Greater Buenos Aires. The frequency of tornadoes is similar to the one found in Tornado Alley in North America. However, there is no exact number of tornado occurrences per year, owing to the lack of data. These regions have the most frequent and intense mesoscale convective systems. Tornados occur between November and April. In this region, which occupies most of the Pampas, cold air from Patagonia meets warm, humid air from Brazil with dry air coming from the Andes. When these air masses collide, they can produce intense storms, frequently becoming supercells that can produce tornados. With a larger number of convective storms, there is a higher chance that some of these storms will produce tornados. Most tornados are relatively weak and rarely cause deaths. The strongest tornado recorded in Argentina occurred in 1973 when a tornado struck San Justo, Santa Fe. The tornado was an F5 on the Fujita scale, with winds up to , making it the worst tornado in Latin America and the Caribbean.

title: List of 2008 Minnesota tornadoes

text: The following is a list of 2008 Minnesota tornadoes. Minnesota is a state located in the North Central United States along the northern edge of Tornado Alley, and on average receives 24 tornadoes per year. 2008 was a more active year historically, with 43 confirmed tornado touchdowns. Thirty-eight of the tornadoes (or 88%) were considered "minor", rated EF0 or EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The remaining five tornadoes were rated as "significant", at EF2 or EF3.

title: Central Oklahoma

text: Because of these convergences of dry and wet weather patterns, Central Oklahoma is at the heart of what is known as Tornado Alley, and is one of the most tornado-prone areas in the United States.

title: Tornado Alley

text: Although the official boundaries of Tornado Alley are not clearly defined, its core extends from northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, into South Dakota. States such as Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and western Ohio are sometimes included in Tornado Alley.[4] Some research suggests that tornadoes are becoming more frequent in the northern parts of Tornado Alley where it reaches the Canadian prairies.[9]

title: Norman, Oklahoma

text: Norman lies within Tornado Alley, the region of the United States where tornadic activity is most frequent. The city has a tornado season lasting from March through June, with over 80% of all reported tornadoes occurring during these months. The Oklahoma City metropolitan area, including Norman, is the most tornado-prone area in the United States. As recently as May 10, 2010, a tornado outbreak occurred in southeastern Norman that resulted in the loss of multiple homes and businesses. On April 13, 2012 Norman was struck by a weak tornado. On May 6, 2015, the northwestern part of Norman was hit by a weak tornado.

title: Tornado Alley

text: Another criterion for the location of Tornado Alley (or Tornado Alleys) can be where the strongest tornadoes occur more frequently.[11]

title: Tornado Alley

text: It has also been asserted that there are numerous Tornado Alleys.[4] In addition to the Texas/Oklahoma/Kansas core, such areas include the Upper Midwest, the lower Ohio Valley, the Tennessee Valley and the lower Mississippi valley.[4] Some studies suggest that there are also smaller tornado alleys located across the United States.[2]

title: 2009 Minnesota tornadoes

text: The following is a list of 2009 Minnesota tornadoes. Minnesota is a state located in the North Central United States along the northern edge of Tornado Alley, and on average receives 24 tornadoes per year. 2009 was an average year historically, with 24 confirmed tornado touchdowns. Twenty-two of the tornadoes (91%) were considered "minor", rated EF0 or EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The remaining two tornadoes were rated as "significant", at EF2.

title: Canada Tornado Alley

text: The Canadian Tornado Alley(s) is a term describing a tornado-prone region in Canada. In Canada, the word is rarely used when compared to that of the United States where their "Tornado Alley" is largely a media-driven term.

title: Tornado Alley

text: No state is entirely free of tornadoes; however, they occur more frequently in the Central United States, between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains.[6] Texas reports the most tornadoes of any state due to its large size, in addition to its proximity to Tornado Alley. Kansas and Oklahoma ranked first and second respectively in the number of tornadoes per area, per data collected through 2007, however in 2013 statistics from the National Climatic Data Center show Florida ranked first.[20] Although Florida reports a high number and density of tornado occurrences, tornadoes there rarely reach the strength of those that sometimes occur in the southern plains.[10] Regionally, the frequency of tornadoes in the United States is closely tied with the progression of the warm season when warm and cold air masses often clash.[10]

title: Canada Tornado Alley

text: Although the official boundaries of the Canadian Tornado Alleys are not clearly defined, its core extends from Central Alberta through Saskatchewan, Southern Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario. A second tornado alley extends from Michigan to Central Ontario and from Central Ontario to Southwestern Quebec. The Canadian Prairies are often considered part of the United States tornado alley.