Ritual is the first album by the Brazilian heavy metal band Shaman. It was first released in 2002, and it is a concept album, about many cultures, mainly indigenous cultures and shamanism. The album sold over 500,000 copies worldwide since its release.
All lyrics by Andre Matos.
This is a list of fictional concepts in Artemis Fowl, a novel series by Eoin Colfer.
A high-tech, fairy-manufactured guided missile, also known as a "bio-bomb" or a "blue-rinse" because of its blue colour. Once detonated, it employs the radioactive energy source Solinium 2 (an element not yet discovered by humans), destroying all living tissue in the area while leaving landscape and buildings untouched. It was used on Fowl Manor in Artemis Fowl, and, later, in Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception, Opal Koboi manufactures a larger missile-guided bio-bomb and a compact bio-bomb with a plasma screen that can only be blocked by the rigid polymer of a LEP helmet.
The Book of the People is the Fairy bible, known by the fairies themselves simply as the Book. It is written in Gnommish, the fairy language. As it contains the history of the People and their life teachings, Artemis Fowl manages to secure a copy from an alcoholic fairy in Ho Chi Minh City and use it to kidnap Holly Short, and to decode Gnommish. The first few lines are included in the first book.
Ritual is a horror novel by British actor and author David Pinner, first published in 1967.
The protagonist of Ritual is an English police officer named David Hanlin. A puritanical Christian, Hanlin is requested to investigate what appears to be the ritualistic murder of a local child in an enclosed rural Cornish village. During his short stay, Hanlin deals with psychological trickery, sexual seduction, ancient religious practices and nightmarish sacrificial rituals.
When Pinner was 26, he had just written the vampire comedy Fanghorn, and was playing the lead role of Sergeant Trotter in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap in the West End of London. He decided to write a film treatment that dealt with the occult (like Fanghorn) but which was also a detective story (like The Mousetrap). Film director Michael Winner liked Pinner's Ritual treatment, and considered making it his next film, with English actor John Hurt in mind for the lead role. However, Winner deemed the treatment to be "too full of imagery", and Pinner's agent, Jonathan Clowes, felt that Winner might sit on the project for a long time. The collaboration came to a halt.
Birth, also known as parturition, is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the fetus at a developmental stage when it is ready to feed and breathe. In some species the offspring is precocial and can move around almost immediately after birth but in others it is altricial and completely dependent on parenting. In marsupials, the fetus is born at a very immature stage after a short gestational period and develops further in its mother's pouch.
It is not only mammals that give birth. Some reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates carry their developing young inside them. Some of these are ovoviviparous, with the eggs being hatched inside the mother's body, and others are viviparous, with the embryo developing inside her body, as in mammals.
Large mammals, such as primates, cattle, horses, some antelopes, giraffes, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, elephants, seals, whales, dolphins, and porpoises, generally are pregnant with one offspring at a time; although, they may have twin or multiple births on occasion. In these large animals, the birth process is similar to that of a human though in most, the offspring is precocial. This means that it is born in a more advanced state than a human baby and is able to stand, walk and run (or swim in the case of an aquatic mammal) shortly after birth. In the case of whales, dolphins and porpoises, the single calf is normally born tail first which minimises the risk of drowning. The mother encourages the newborn calf to rise to the surface of the water to breathe.
Birth is the process in animals by which an offspring is expelled from the body of its mother.
Birth may also refer to:
Birth is the debut indie album by Index Case, released in 2000.