Acorn

The acorn, or oak nut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera Quercus and Lithocarpus, in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a single seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns vary from 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm broad. Acorns take between 6 and 24 months (depending on the species) to mature; see List of Quercus species for details of oak classification, in which acorn morphology and phenology are important factors.

Ecological role

Acorns play an important role in forest ecology when oaks are the dominant species or are plentiful. The volume of the acorn crop may vary wildly, creating great abundance or great stress on the many animals dependent on acorns and the predators of those animals. Acorns, along with other nuts, are termed mast.

Wildlife that consumes acorns as an important part of their diets includes birds, such as jays, pigeons, some ducks, and several species of woodpeckers. Small mammals that feed on acorns include mice, squirrels and several other rodents.

Acorn (disambiguation)

An acorn is a type of nut.

Acorn or The Acorn may also refer to:

Geography

People

Companies and organizations

Publications

Music

Acronyms

Acorn Computers

Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s It is more known for its BBC Micro model B computer than for its other products.

Though the company was broken up into several independent operations in 1998, its legacy includes the development of RISC personal computers. One of its operating systems, RISC OS, continues to be developed by RISC OS Open. Some of Acorn's former subsidiaries live on today—notably ARM Holdings, which is globally dominant in the mobile phone and PDA microprocessor market.

Acorn is sometimes referred to as the "British Apple" and has been compared to Fairchild Semiconductor for being a catalyst for start-ups. In 2010, the company was listed by David Meyer in ZDNet as number nine in a feature of top ten fallen "Dead IT giants". Many British IT professionals gained their early experiences on Acorns, which were often more technically advanced than commercially successful US hardware.

Long

Long may refer to:

In measurements

In geography

People and characters

Other uses

See also

Long (surname)

Long is a surname and may refer to many people.

The Longs in Ireland got their names from a number of different origins. Some are of English, Scottish, and Norman descent. The Norman de Long and le Lung arrived in the 11th century with the Anglo-Norman conquest in 1066 AD and established in numerous locations. A number of Irish Gaelic septs of O'Longain and O'Longaig contributed to the origin of the name. One sept was located in County Armagh, but the greater numbers were in County Cork at Cannovee and also at Moviddy. The Longs lost all their lands in the upheavals of the 17th century. The name is found in its greatest numbers in Munster, County Cork being most favored. The line of direct descent from the last elected chieftain to the present day is unbroken — the official title is styled "O'Long of Carrenelongy". The Irish origin also comes from "Lonklin" from county Tipperary and Dublin.

Long is also the pinyin romanization of several Chinese surnames. It includes 龍/龙, which means "dragon" in Chinese, ranking number 80 on the list of common Chinese surnames in 2006, up from 108 in 1990. Another name transcribed as Long is 隆, which is very rare in contemporary China. In Hong Kong, these names are also romanized as Lung.

List of Major League Baseball players with unidentified given names

Forty-one individuals who played professional baseball at the major league level lack identified given names. Identification of players remains difficult due to a lack of information; a Brooklyn, New York directory, for instance, lists more than 30 men that could be the professional player "Stoddard". Possible mistakes in reading box scores from the 19th century could have also led to players without given names: "Eland", for example, could be another player from the Baltimore Marylands roster whose name was simply misread. Four of the 41, McBride, Stafford, Sterling, and Sweigert, were local players added to the Philadelphia Athletics team by manager Bill Sharsig for Philadelphia's last game of the season against the Syracuse Stars on October 12, 1890. Sterling pitched five innings for the Athletics and conceded 12 runs. McBride, Philadelphia's center fielder, and Stafford, the team's right fielder, both failed to reach base, but left fielder Sweigert reached base on a walk and stole a base. Society for American Baseball Research writer Bill Carle "doubt[s] we will ever be able to identify them".