Hand

A hand (Latin manus) is a prehensile, multi-fingered organ located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "hand" and fingerprints remarkably similar to human fingerprints) are often described as having "hands" instead of paws on their front limbs. The raccoon is usually described as having "hands" though opposable thumbs are lacking.

Fingers contain some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body, are the richest source of tactile feedback, and have the greatest positioning capability of the body; thus the sense of touch is intimately associated with hands. Like other paired organs (eyes, feet, legs) each hand is dominantly controlled by the opposing brain hemisphere, so that handedness—the preferred hand choice for single-handed activities such as writing with a pencil, reflects individual brain functioning.

Some evolutionary anatomists use the term hand to refer to the appendage of digits on the forelimb more generally — for example, in the context of whether the three digits of the bird hand involved the same homologous loss of two digits as in the dinosaur hand.

System of a Down (album)

System of a Down is the debut album by Armenian American rock band System of a Down, released in 1998. The album was certified gold by the RIAA on February 2, 2000. Two years later, after the success of Toxicity, it was certified platinum.

Overview

The cover artwork is from an anti-fascist, World War II-era poster designed by the artist John Heartfield for the Communist Party of Germany, which was contemporary with and directly against the Third Reich. The text on the original poster is: "5 fingers has a hand! With these 5 grab the enemy!" This slogan inspired part of the text contained on the back of the System of a Down album: "The hand has five fingers, capable and powerful, with the ability to destroy as well as create". Later, it is written in bold letters: "Open your eyes, open your mouths, close your hands and make a fist" (used later by Serj Tankian in the song "Uneducated Democracy").

Reception

Q magazine (10/01, p. 152) - 4 stars out of 5 - "This remains an excellent starting point for this most curious band".

The Hand (comics)

The Hand is a fictional supervillain organization appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

The Hand is an order of evil mystical ninjas who are heavily involved in organized crime and mercenary activities such as assassination plots. The Hand covets power above all other objectives. They are primarily based in Japan, but operate internationally. They were founded in 1588 as a secret society of Japanese nationalist samurai but were soon co-opted by the Snakeroot, an ancient ninja clan which serves a primordial demon known only as "The Beast".

Members of the Hand are practitioners of powerful occult magic and can murder a person and bring that person back to life as a servant of the Hand, but a few are known to have reversed this programming. The Hand's most dangerous adversary is The Chaste, a band of warriors once led by Stick, the late, blind martial arts master and former mentor of Matt Murdock, who grew to become the costumed crime-fighter Daredevil and, after many bitter battles, would accept the offer of becoming the master of the Hand.

Flute

The flute is a family of a musical instrument in the woodwind group. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel–Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones.

A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, flautist, flutist or, less commonly, fluter or flutenist.

Flutes are the earliest extant musical instruments. A number of flutes dating to about 43,000 to 35,000 years ago have been found in the Swabian Alb region of Germany. These flutes demonstrate that a developed musical tradition existed from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe. Flutes, including the famous Bansuri, have been an integral part of Indian classical music since 1500 BC. A major deity of Hinduism, Krishna, has been associated with the flute.

Etymology

The word flute first entered the English language during the Middle English period, as floute, or else flowte, flo(y)te, possibly from Old French flaute and from Old Provençal flaüt, or else from Old French fleüte, flaüte, flahute via Middle High German floite or Dutch fluit. The English verb flout has the same linguistic root, and the modern Dutch verb fluiten still shares the two meanings. Attempts to trace the word back to the Latin flare (to blow, inflate) have been pronounced "phonologically impossible" or "inadmissable". The first known use of the word flute was in the 14th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this was in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Hous of Fame, c.1380.

Western concert flute

The Western concert flute is a transverse (side-blown) woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, flute player, or fluter.

This type of flute is used in many ensembles including concert bands, military bands, marching bands, orchestras, flute ensembles, and occasionally jazz bands and big bands. Other flutes in this family include the piccolo, alto flute, bass flute, contrabass flute, double contrabass flute and the hyperbass flute. A large repertory of works has been composed for flute.

History

The flute is one of the oldest and most widely used wind instruments. The precursors of the modern concert flute were keyless wooden transverse flutes, similar to modern fifes. These were later modified to include between one and eight keys for chromatic notes.

Predecessors of the Western concert flute

The most common pitch for keyless wooden traverse flutes is "six-finger" D. Keyless traverse flutes continue to be used in folk music (particularly Irish traditional music) and in historically informed performances of Baroque (and earlier) music.

Flute (song)

"Flute" is a song by Australian electronic DJ and record production duo New World Sound and Thomas Newson. The song was released in Australia as a digital download in November 2013 through Doorn Records, Spinnin Records and Ministry of Sound Australia. The song was written and produced by New World Sound and Thomas Newson. The song has charted in Belgium, France, Netherlands and Switzerland.

Music video

A music video to accompany the release of "Flute" was first released onto YouTube on 21 November 2013 at a total length of three minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

Track listing

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Release history

Flutes

New World Sound and Thomas Newson released a second version of the song titled "Flutes" featuring guest vocals from British Grime artist Lethal Bizzle. It was released as a digital download on 21 December 2014.

Music video

A music video to accompany the release of "Flutes" was first released onto YouTube on 30 September 2014 at a total length of three minutes.