Giant panda

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, lit. "black and white cat-foot"; simplified Chinese: 大熊猫; traditional Chinese: 大熊貓; pinyin: dà xióng māo, lit. "big bear cat"), also known as panda bear or simply panda, is a bear native to south central China. It is easily recognized by the large, distinctive black patches around its eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes used to distinguish it from the unrelated red panda. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the giant panda's diet is over 99% bamboo. Giant pandas in the wild will occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, or even meat in the form of birds, rodents or carrion. In captivity, they may receive honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, or bananas along with specially prepared food.

The giant panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in neighbouring provinces, namely Shaanxi and Gansu. As a result of farming, deforestation, and other development, the giant panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived.

Panda (disambiguation)

Panda or panda bear most often refers to:

Panda may also refer to:

In biology

In medicine

In transport

Panda Bear (musician)

Noah Benjamin Lennox (born July 17, 1978), also known by his moniker Panda Bear, is an American experimental pop musician and co-founding member of the band Animal Collective. In addition to his work with that group, Lennox has also maintained a successful solo career, releasing five solo LPs since 1999. He is currently based in Lisbon, Portugal.

Early life

Lennox grew up in the Roland Park section of Baltimore, Maryland, and attended Waldorf School of Baltimore through 8th grade, and Kimberton Waldorf School in Chester County, Pennsylvania for high school. As a child and teenager, he played sports, mainly soccer and basketball. Lennox has also stated in interviews that he enjoyed drawing a lot as a teenager, especially pandas, and later started drawing pandas on his early mixtapes. He also studied piano until he was eight, then cello, and later on he sang tenor in his high school chamber choir.

Though he and his family have never been very religious, Lennox briefly attended Boston University where he majored in religion because of his interest in "the concept of God". While a student at the university, Lennox starred in three student short films: Fish Sticks and Fecal Matters, both directed by Andrew Drazek; and Appy Halloween, directed by Black Nasty.

Stone washing

Stone washing is a textile manufacturing process used to give a newly manufactured cloth garment a worn-in (or worn-out) appearance. Stone-washing also helps to increase the softness and flexibility of otherwise stiff and rigid fabrics such as canvas and denim.

The process uses large stones to roughen up the fabric being processed. The garments are placed in a large horizontal industrial clothes washer that is also filled with large stones. As the wash cylinder rotates, the cloth fibers are repeatedly pounded and beaten as the tumbling stones ride up the paddles inside the drum and fall back down onto the fabric.

A number of people and organizations have claimed to have invented stone-washing. According to Levi Strauss & Co., Donald Freeland, an employee of the Great Western Garment Company (later acquired by Levi's), invented "stone-washing" denim in the 1950s. Inventor Claude Blankiet has also been credited with having invented the technique in the 1970s. The jeans company Edwin claims to have invented the technique in the 1980s.