A gremlin is a creature commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented, with a specific interest in aircraft. Gremlins' mischievous natures are similar to those of English folkloric imps, while their inclination to damage or dismantle machinery is more modern.
Although their origin is found in myths among airmen, claiming that the gremlins were responsible for sabotaging aircraft, John W. Hazen states that "some people" derive the name from the Old English word gremian, "to vex". While Carol Rose, in her book Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins attributes the name to a combination of the name of Grimm's Fairy Tales, and Fremlin Beer. Since World War II, different fantastical creatures have been referred to as gremlins, bearing varying degrees of resemblance to the originals.
The term "gremlin" denoting a mischievous creature that sabotages aircraft, originates in Royal Air Force (RAF) slang in the 1920s among the British pilots stationed in Malta, the Middle East, and India, with the earliest recorded printed use being in a poem published in the journal Aeroplane in Malta on 10 April 1929. Later sources have sometimes claimed that the concept goes back to World War I, but there is no print evidence of this.
Gremlin is an inhibitor in the TGF beta signaling pathway.
Gremlin1, previously known as Drm, is a highly conserved 20.7-kDa, 184 amino acid glycoprotein part of the DAN family and is a cysteine knot-secreted protein. Gremlin1 was first identified in differential screening as a transcriptional down-regulated gene in v-mos-transformed rat embryonic fibroblasts.
Gremlin1 (Grem1) is known for its antagonistic interaction with bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) in the TGF beta signaling pathway. Grem1 inhibits predominantly BMP2 and BMP4 in limb buds and functions as part of a self-regulatory feedback signaling system, which is essential for normal limb bud development and digit formation. Inhibition of BMPs by Grem1 in limb buds allows the transcriptional up-regulation of the fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) 4 and 8 and Sonic hedgehog (SHH) ligands, which are part of the signaling system that controls progression of limb bud development. Grem1 regulation of BMP4 in mice embryos is also essential for kidney and lung branching morphogenesis.
The Kasakela chimpanzee community is a habituated community of wild eastern chimpanzees that lives in Gombe National Park near Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. The community was the subject of Dr Jane Goodall's pioneering study that began in 1960, and studies have continued ever since. As a result, the community has been instrumental in the study of chimpanzees, and has been popularized in several books and documentaries. The community's popularity was enhanced by Dr Goodall's practice of giving names to the chimpanzees she was observing, in contrast to the typical scientific practice of identifying the subjects by number. Dr Goodall generally used a naming convention in which infants were given names starting with the same letter as their mother, allowing the recognition of matrilineal lines.
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal.Codec is a portmanteau of coder-decoder or, less commonly, compressor-decompressor.
A codec encodes a data stream or signal for transmission, storage or encryption, or decodes it for playback or editing. Codecs are used in videoconferencing, streaming media, and video editing applications. A video camera's analog-to-digital converter (ADC) converts its analog signals into digital signals, which are then passed through a video compressor for digital transmission or storage. A receiving device then runs the signal through a video decompressor, then a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for analog display.
In the mid 20th century, a codec was a hardware device that coded analog signals into digital form using pulse-code modulation (PCM). Late in the century the name was also applied to a class of software for converting between different digital signal formats, including compander functions.
Metal Gear Solid (Japanese: メタルギアソリッド, Hepburn: Metaru Gia Soriddo) is an action-adventure stealth video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and first published by Konami for the PlayStation in 1998. The game was directed, produced, and co-written by series creator Hideo Kojima, and serves as a sequel to the MSX2 video games Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which Kojima also wrote and directed.
Metal Gear Solid follows Solid Snake, a soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from FOXHOUND, a renegade special forces unit. Snake must liberate two hostages, the head of DARPA and the president of a major arms manufacturer, confront the terrorists, and stop them from launching a nuclear strike. Cinematic cutscenes were rendered using the in-game engine and graphics, and voice acting was used throughout the entire game.
Metal Gear Solid was well received, shipping more than six million copies, and scoring an average of 94/100 on the aggregate website Metacritic. It is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest and most important games of all time, and is often seen as the game which helped popularize the stealth genre. The commercial success of the title prompted the release of an expanded version for the PlayStation and PC, titled Metal Gear Solid: Integral; and a remake, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was later released for the GameCube. The game has also spawned numerous sequels, prequels and spin-offs, including several games, a radio drama, comics, and novels.
Metal Gear is a series of video games.
Metal Gear may also refer to: