Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs and are easily recognised by the pair of grasping pedipalps and the narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back, ending with a venomous stinger. Scorpions range in size from 9 mm (Typhlochactas mitchelli) to 23 cm (Heterometrus swammerdami).
The evolutionary history of scorpions goes back to the Silurian era 430 million years ago. They have adapted to a wide range of environmental conditions and can now be found on all continents except Antarctica. Scorpions number about 1750 described species, with 13 extant families recognised to date. Only about 25 of these species are known to have venom capable of killing a human being.The taxonomy has undergone changes and is likely to change further, as genetic studies are bringing forth new information.
Scorpion stings are painful but are usually harmless. For stings from species found in the United States, no treatment is normally needed for healthy adults although medical care should be sought for children and for the elderly. Stings from species found elsewhere may require medical attention.
Scorpions was an Iraqi paramilitary force set up by the United States Central Intelligence Agency prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The covert members were trained in Jordan in target identification, explosives and small arms at two secret bases. Weapons and equipment (including old Soviet Hind helicopters) were supplied by the CIA. Most members were recruited from the Iraqi exile community by Iraqi Kurds.
The original mission of the Scorpions was to foment rebellion in Iraq prior to the US led invasion. However, due to training delays, little of this mission was ever achieved. Following the war, the CIA began using the Scorpions in anti-insurgency roles, and for interrogations of prisoners.
The Scorpions have been implicated in the events that led to the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush while in US captivity. These events included the use of physical and psychological torture under the auspices of a US CIA operative identified only as "Brian".
That the Scorpions original mission was to start, or give the appearance of a rebellion against the regime of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, makes their involvement in the death of Mowoush significant. It is not clear at what point the Scorpions became involved in the interrogation of US held prisoners. However, this appears to tie in with the US policy of extraordinary rendition.
Clube Desportivo Scorpions Vermelho de Santa Cruz is a football (soccer) club that plays in the Santiago Island League North Zone of the Grupo Centro Sul in Cape Verde. The team is based in the town of Santa Cruz in the southeastern part of the island of Santiago. The club was founded in 2003. Prior to 2006, the team was playing in the Santiago Island League (South) competition. It entered into the level and became the Centro Sul group. In April 2007, the team won their first zonal title in the team's history and entered the Capeverdean National Division for the first time in history and participated in Group B, they participated again in 2008 and 2011 and 2013 and had never advanced into the playoffs, its highest ranking in the regular season was 3rd in Group B.
Its logo features the crest with the green ribbon reading the club name with the top left colored white and features a scorpion and the bottom right colored blue and features a boat.
Snakes are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads with their highly mobile jaws. To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca.
Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on most smaller land masses — exceptions include some large islands, such as Ireland and New Zealand, and many small islands of the Atlantic and central Pacific. Additionally, sea snakes are widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans. More than 20 families are currently recognized, comprising about 500 genera and about 3,400 species. They range in size from the tiny, 10 cm-long thread snake to the reticulated python of up to 6.95 meters (22.8 ft) in length. The fossil species Titanoboa cerrejonensis was 13 meters (43 ft) long. Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, with the earliest known fossils dating to between 143 and 167 Ma ago. The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene period (c 66 to 56 Ma ago). The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes can be found in the Brooklyn Papyrus.
Snakes is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in July 1969.
It depicts a disc made up of interlocking circles that grow progressively smaller towards the center and towards the edge. There are three snakes laced through the edge of the disc.
Snakes has rotational symmetry of order 3, comprising a single wedge-shaped image repeated three times in a circle. This means that it was printed from three blocks that were rotated on a pin to make three impressions each. Close inspection reveals the central mark left by the pin. The image is printed in three colours: green, brown and black. In several earlier works Escher explored the limits of infinitesimal size and infinite number, for example the Circle Limit series, by actually carrying through the rendering of smaller and smaller figures to the smallest possible sizes. By contrast, in Snakes, the infinite diminution of size – and infinite increase in number – is only suggested in the finished work. Nevertheless, the print shows very clearly how this rendering would have been carried out to the limits of human visibility.
Snakes is an update to the classic Snake game from Nokia. It is freely downloadable from the Nokia N-Gage website, and can be copied to another N-Gage handset via Bluetooth. A new version is now available as an embedded game on most N-series smartphones from Nokia, e.g. Nokia N95.
Although Snakes was primarily designed for the Nokia N-Gage platform, it is also available for Nokia N95. Several other devices support the optimized file mention earlier as well, one example is Nokia E65 which supports and can run the game at a near-full framerate as on Nokia N95. However, there have been cases in which a phone which can support the game, crashed promptly after launching the application.
DIY may refer to: