Meme

A meme (/ˈmiːm/ meem) is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture". A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.

The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme (from Ancient Greek μίμημα pronounced [míːmɛːma] mīmēma, "imitated thing", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos, "mime") coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catchphrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.

Proponents theorize that memes are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.

Morlocks (comics)

The Morlocks are a group of several fictional mutant characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters are usually depicted as being associated with the X-Men in the Marvel Universe. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Paul Smith, they were named after the subterranean race of the same name in H. G. Wells' novel The Time Machine. They first appeared as a group in Uncanny X-Men #169 (May 1983). (Caliban appeared prior to that (in Uncanny X-Men #148), but he was not yet a member of the Morlocks.)

Due to a series of tragedies, the original Morlocks no longer reside in subterranean New York City (except Marrow, who was one of the original Morlocks as a child), although a violent splinter cell Gene Nation and a comparable group called Those Who Live in Darkness have emerged. Similar groups, called Morlocks by readers and/or the X-Men themselves, have appeared under Chicago and London.

The Morlocks appeared occasionally in the 1990s X-Men animated series and its successor X-Men: Evolution.

Meme (band)

Meme is an indie-pop music project created by producer Danny Burke and singer/lyricist Lizzie Brown based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The couple began making music together after hours at In the Groove Music's studio where Danny Burke works as a producer and songwriter. The group's sound combines Lizzie Brown's ethereal pop voice and sense of melody with Danny Burke's ambient electro-acoustic songs. The group has been featured on multiple television shows and movies including Jersey Shore,Gossip Girl,From Prada to Nada, and The Real L Word. Meme's first self-titled disc was released in the summer of 2010. Their second disc, Primary Colours, is scheduled to release in the summer of 2011.

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Mammoth

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, proboscideans commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,500 years ago in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors. Mammoths stem from an ancestral species called M. africanavus, the African mammoth. These mammoths lived in northern Africa and disappeared about 3 or 4 million years ago. Descendants of these mammoths moved north and eventually covered most of Eurasia. These were M. meridionalis, the 'southern mammoths'.

Evolution

The earliest known proboscideans, the clade that contains the elephants, existed about 55 million years ago around the Tethys Sea area. The closest relatives of the Proboscidea are the sirenians and the hyraxes. The family Elephantidae is known to have existed six million years ago in Africa, and includes the living elephants and the mammoths. Among many now extinct clades, the mastodon is only a distant relative of the mammoths, and part of the separate Mammutidae family, which diverged 25 million years before the mammoths evolved.

Mammoth (ride)

Mammoth is a water coaster at Holiday World & Splashin' Safari in Santa Claus, Indiana, USA. It was designed and built beginning in 2011 by ProSlide Technology; it opened on May 11, 2012. Mammoth is named after the Mammoth, a now-extinct prehistoric mammal, keeping with the water park's safari theme. When it was completed in 2012, Mammoth became the world's longest water coaster at 1,763 feet (537 m) long. It claimed that title from Holiday World's first water coaster, Wildebeest, which is 1,710 feet (520 m) long.

History

On August 3, 2011, Holiday World & Splashin' Safari announced Mammoth, a ProSlide HydroMagnetic Mammoth that was to be built to the east of Wildebeest. Unlike Wildebeest, which uses 4-passenger, toboggan-style boats, Mammoth was to use round, 6-passenger boats. Another unique feature of Mammoth is its length. When completed, the water coaster was 1,763 feet (537 m) long, making it the longest water coaster in the world.

Mammoth opened on May 11, 2012. When the HydroMagnetic water coaster opened, it operated with ten 6-passenger boats. The riders in the 6-passenger "round spinner" boats are seated in a circle facing each other; when it opened, Mammoth was the only water coaster to utilize this type of boat.

Mammoth (John Varley)

Mammoth is a 2005 novel by author John Varley. The book centers around the concept of time travel, and gives quite a bit of discussion to the concept that there may be limits to science.

Synopsis