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🔗 Radio Stations

United Biscuits Network (UBN) was an internal radio station serving the factories of United Biscuits (UB) in Britain that operated from 1970 to 1979.

In 1970 the BBC had a monopoly on radio broadcasting in Britain, although there were a few offshore pirate radio broadcasters, such as Radio Caroline. At one time factories had sought to avoid unnecessary background sound, but during the Second World War psychologists found that light background music (muzak) increased productivity at times it was low, a trend that continued after the war. But as jobs became deskilled and ever more monotonous, muzak became less effective, and staff turnover increased. United Biscuits was affected by this trend; Hector Laing, the managing director in the 1960s, needed to reduce the costs of high staff turnover. Inspired by the success of the pirate stations, Laing hired suitable staff, bought state-of-the-art broadcasting equipment, and set up UBN at UB headquarters in Osterley, west London (later the headquarters of broadcaster Sky UK).

🔗 History 🔗 Lists 🔗 Geography 🔗 Israel 🔗 Palestine

The population of the region of Palestine, which approximately corresponds to modern Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan, has varied in both size and ethnic composition throughout its history.

The following table shows the total population and that of the main ethno-religious groups living in the area from the First Century CE up until the last full calendar year of the British Mandate, 1947.

Note: Figures prior to the 1500s are all only estimates by researchers. For some periods, there are multiple researchers who have made differing estimates. None should be taken as exact numbers, and further context and detail is available by following links to the full description on Wikipedia as well as links to the original information sources.

^†including what is today the Kingdom of Jordan

🔗 Physics 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Time

The possibility that there might be more than one dimension of time has occasionally been discussed in physics and philosophy. Similar ideas appear in folklore and fantasy literature.

🔗 Marketing & Advertising 🔗 Brands 🔗 Graffiti

Reverse graffiti is a method of creating temporary or semi-permanent images on walls or other surfaces by removing dirt from a surface. It can also be done by simply removing dirt with the fingertip from windows or other dirty surfaces, such as writing "wash me" on a dirty vehicle. Others, such as graffiti artist Moose, use a cloth or a high-power washer to remove dirt on a larger scale.

Reverse graffiti has been used as a form of advertising, although this usage has been controversial, as its legality varies depending on jurisdiction.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Molecular Biology 🔗 Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cell Biology

Foldit is an online puzzle video game about protein folding. It is part of an experimental research project developed by the University of Washington, Center for Game Science, in collaboration with the UW Department of Biochemistry. The objective of Foldit is to fold the structures of selected proteins as perfectly as possible, using tools provided in the game. The highest scoring solutions are analyzed by researchers, who determine whether or not there is a native structural configuration (native state) that can be applied to relevant proteins in the real world. Scientists can then use these solutions to target and eradicate diseases and create biological innovations. A 2010 paper in the science journal Nature credited Foldit's 57,000 players with providing useful results that matched or outperformed algorithmically computed solutions.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Germany 🔗 Visual arts

The Master of the Playing Cards (German: Meister der Spielkarten) was the first major master in the history of printmaking. He was a German (or conceivably Swiss) engraver, and probably also a painter, active in southwestern Germany – probably in Alsace, from the 1430s to the 1450s, who has been called "the first personality in the history of engraving."

Various attempts to identify him have not been generally accepted, so he remains known only through his 106 engravings, which include the set of playing cards in five suits from which he takes his name. The majority of the set survives in unique impressions, most of which are in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. A further 88 engravings are regarded as sufficiently close to his style to be by his pupils.

🔗 Women 🔗 Women's History 🔗 Japan 🔗 Japan/History 🔗 Japan/Culture 🔗 Japan/Law and government 🔗 Feminism

Feminism in Japan began with women's rights movements that date back to antiquity. The movement started to gain momentum after Western thinking was brought into Japan during the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Japanese feminism differs from Western feminism in that less emphasis is placed on individual autonomy.

Prior to the late 19th century, Japanese women were bound by the traditional patriarchal system where senior male members of the family maintain their authority in the household. After the reforms brought by Meiji Restoration, women's status in Japanese society also went through series of changes. Trafficking of women was restricted, women were allowed to request divorces, and both boys and girls were required to receive elementary education. Further changes to women's status came about in the aftermath of World War II. Women received the right to vote, and a section of the new constitution drafted in 1946 was dedicated to guarantee gender equality.

In 1970, in the wake of the anti–Vietnam War movements, a new women's liberation movement called ūman ribu (woman lib) emerged in Japan from the New Left and radical student movements in the late 1960s. This movement was in sync with radical feminist movements in the United States and elsewhere, catalyzing a resurgence of feminist activism through the 1970s and beyond. The activists forwarded a comprehensive critique of the male-dominated nature of modern Japan, arguing for a fundamental change of the political-economic system and culture of the society. What distinguished them from previous feminist movements was their emphasis on sexual liberation (性の解放, sei no kaihō). They did not aim for equality with men, but rather focused on calling for men's liberation from the oppressive aspects of a patriarchal and capitalist system.

In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The Japanese government ratified it in 1985.

🔗 International relations 🔗 France 🔗 Italy 🔗 Telecommunications 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Law Enforcement 🔗 Netherlands 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography/Organized crime

EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider that offered modified smartphones allowing encrypted communication among subscribers. It was used primarily by organized crime members to plan criminal activities. Police infiltrated the network between at least March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. An unidentified source associated with EncroChat announced on the night of 12–13 June 2020 that the company would cease operations because of the police operation.

The service had around 60,000 subscribers at the time of its closure. As a result of police being able to read unencrypted EncroChat messages, at least 1,000 arrests had been made across Europe as of 22 December 2020.

🔗 Evolutionary biology 🔗 Molecular Biology 🔗 Molecular Biology/Genetics

In evolutionary biology and population genetics, the error threshold (or critical mutation rate) is a limit on the number of base pairs a self-replicating molecule may have before mutation will destroy the information in subsequent generations of the molecule. The error threshold is crucial to understanding "Eigen's paradox".

The error threshold is a concept in the origins of life (abiogenesis), in particular of very early life, before the advent of DNA. It is postulated that the first self-replicating molecules might have been small ribozyme-like RNA molecules. These molecules consist of strings of base pairs or "digits", and their order is a code that directs how the molecule interacts with its environment. All replication is subject to mutation error. During the replication process, each digit has a certain probability of being replaced by some other digit, which changes the way the molecule interacts with its environment, and may increase or decrease its fitness, or ability to reproduce, in that environment.