Venom

Venom is a form of toxin secreted by an animal for the purpose of causing harm to another. Venom is injected into victims by means of a bite, sting or other sharp body feature, which differentiates it from poison (that is absorbed, consumed or inhaled).

The potency of different venoms varies; lethal venoms are often characterised by the median lethal dose (LD₅₀, LD50, or LD-50), expressed in terms of mass fraction (e.g., milligrams of toxin per kilogram of body mass), that will kill 50% of the target of a specified type (e.g., laboratory mice).

Utilization of venom across a large number of species demonstrates an example of convergent evolution and a homoplastic trait. It is difficult to conclude exactly how this trait came to be so intensely widespread and diversified. The multigene families that encode the toxins of venomous animals are actively selected on, creating more diverse toxins with specific functions. Venoms adapt to their environment and victims and accordingly evolve to become maximally efficient on a predator’s particular prey (particularly the precise ion channels within the prey). Consequently, venoms become specialized to an animal’s standard diet.

List of Guilty Gear characters

This is an index of characters from the Guilty Gear fighting game series.

Creation and influences

Daisuke Ishiwatari has cited Kazushi Hagiwara's manga Bastard‼, and the fighting game Street Fighter II as influence to the Guilty Gear series. However, he noted that the majority of other fighting games were just recycling the character's same skins or style, and so he wanted every character "to be unique in their own way."Kazuhiko Shimamoto's characters was also noted as an inspiration for the men characters, with Ishiwatari saying they needed to be "chivalrous person-like characters", and citing Anji Mito "the most closest to this type". The female ones, on the other hand, have not followed a standard, with he only saying that they needed look like real women.

There are many musical references in the Guilty Gear series, including various characters' names and moves, which were inspired by rock and heavy metal bands like Queen, Guns N' Roses, and Metallica. For instance, the main character, Sol Badguy, was named after Queen's lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury. Both his real name, Frederick, and his last name were influenced by the singer, whose nickname was "Mr. Badguy".

Venom (disambiguation)

Venom is a class of animal toxins.

Venom or Venomous may refer to:

Comics

Cipher

In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. To encipher or encode is to convert information into cipher or code. In common parlance, 'cipher' is synonymous with 'code', as they are both a set of steps that encrypt a message; however, the concepts are distinct in cryptography, especially classical cryptography.

Codes generally substitute different length strings of characters in the output, while ciphers generally substitute the same number of characters as are input. There are exceptions and some cipher systems may use slightly more, or fewer, characters when output versus the number that were input.

Codes operated by substituting according to a large codebook which linked a random string of characters or numbers to a word or phrase. For example, "UQJHSE" could be the code for "Proceed to the following coordinates." When using a cipher the original information is known as plaintext, and the encrypted form as ciphertext. The ciphertext message contains all the information of the plaintext message, but is not in a format readable by a human or computer without the proper mechanism to decrypt it.

Cipher (disambiguation)

A cipher is a method of encryption or decryption.

Cipher may also refer to:

Fiction

Characters

Groups

Music

Cipher (newuniversal)

Cipher (Jennifer Swann) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character appears in the newuniversal imprint of Marvel Comics, and is one of the four initial superhumans created by the White Event in 2006 (the others being Justice, Nightmask, and Star Brand). newuniversal, designated Earth-555 in the Marvel Comics multiverse, is a re-imagining of the New Universe imprint from the late 1980s. The name Cipher actually refers to two things: a powerful extra-dimensional glyph (tattoo) that confers superhuman powers on a sentient being, and the name of the being that wields the glyph. Cipher is a new superhuman created by Warren Ellis and Salvador Larroca who were inspired by the original Spitfire and the nature of the Star Brand itself (as an extra-dimensional tool of near-unlimited power), combined with strong conceptual ties to Iron Man.

Fictional character biography

Project Spitfire

Essentially nothing is known about Dr. Jennifer Swann’s early life, or where she earned her doctorate. Sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s she was hired by the NSA to work on Project Spitfire, taking her father’s previous position there. Jennifer continues the work her father, Dr. Joseph Swann, began in 1959 on the H.E.X. (Human Enhancement eXperimental) initiative, an armored exoskeleton that is intended to enable its wearer to combat superhumans with a wide variety of weapons. The original suit was created by Anthony Stark in 1959 who became Cipher in the "The Fireworks" event in 1955, and is an alternate version of Tony Stark (Iron Man) from the mainstream Marvel Universe. Prior to the events in newuniversal #1, neither Jennifer nor her father were able to perfect the design, both suffering broken bones during testing.