Xingu

Xingu may refer to:

Xingu peoples

Xingu peoples are indigenous peoples of Brazil living near the Xingu River. They have many cultural similarities despite their different ethnologies. Xingu people represent fifteen tribes and all four of Brazil's indigenous language groups, but they share similar belief systems, rituals and ceremonies.

Precolumbian history

The Upper Xingu region was heavily populated prior to European and African contact. Densely populated settlements developed from 1200 to 1600 CE. Ancient roads and bridges linked communities were often surrounded by ditches or moats. The villages were pre-planned and featured circular plazas. Archaeologists have unearthed 19 villages so far.

Post-contact history

Kuikuro oral history says European slavers arrived in the Xingu region around 1750. Xinuguano population was estimated in the tens of thousands but was dramatically reduced by diseases and slavery by Europeans. In the centuries since the penetration of the Europeans into South America, the Xingu fled from different regions to escape modernization and cultural assimilation. Nonetheless settlers made it up as far as the upper run of the Rio Xingu. By the end of the 19th century, about 3,000 natives lived at the Alto Xingu, where their current political status has kept them protected against European intruders. By the mid twentieth century this number had been reduced by foreign epidemic diseases such as flu, measles, smallpox and malaria to less than 1,000. Only an estimated 500 Xingu peoples were alive in the 1950s.

Xingu (film)

Xingu is a 2011 Brazilian drama film directed by Cao Hamburger and scripted by him, Elena Soárez and Anna Muylaert. Starring João Miguel, Felipe Camargo and Caio Blat, the film tells the Villas-Bôas brothers trajectory from the moment in which they joined the Roncador-Xingu expedition, part of the Westward March of Getúlio Vargas, in 1943.

It was shot in Tocantins, Xingu National Park, and in the Greater São Paulo. The film was exhibited for the first time in 2011, at the 8th Amazonas Film Festival. The official premiere took place on April 6, 2012. The film was watched by about 370.000 spectators and has raised more than four million reals in box office. A television adaptation in four episodes was aired on Rede Globo between 25 and December 28, 2012.

Plot

The story takes place in the 1940s when the Villas-Bôas brothers—Claudio (João Miguel), Leonardo (Caio Blat) and Orlando (Felipe Camargo)—start an exploratory expedition into the Xingu River. They make contact with the local tribes, learn to live in the rainforest, and persuade a reluctant government to found the Xingu National Park.

Embryo

An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of fertilization through sexual reproduction until birth, hatching, or germination.

In humans, an embryo is generally considered to be between the first and the eighth week of development after fertilization, and from then it is instead called a fetus. While most organ systems develop from the third week to the eighth, embryonic life begins at conception.

The development of the embryo is called embryogenesis. In organisms that reproduce sexually, once a sperm fertilizes an egg cell, the result is a cell called the zygote, which possesses half the DNA of each of its two parents. In plants, animals, and some protists, the zygote will begin to divide by mitosis to produce a multicellular organism. The result of this process is an embryo.

Etymology

First attested in English in the mid-14c., the word embryon derives from Medieval Latin embryo, itself from Greek ἔμβρυον (embruon), lit. "young one", which is the neuter of ἔμβρυος (embruos), lit. "growing in", from ἐν (en), "in" and βρύω (bruō), "swell, be full"; the proper Latinized form of the Greek term would be embryum.

Pink Floyd bootleg recordings

Pink Floyd bootleg recordings are the collections of audio and video recordings of musical performances by the British rock band Pink Floyd, which were never officially released by the band. The recordings consist of both live performances and outtakes from studio sessions unavailable in official releases. In some cases, certain bootleg recordings may be highly prized among collectors, as at least 40 songs composed by Pink Floyd have never been officially released.

During the 1970s, bands such as Pink Floyd created a lucrative market for the mass production of unofficial recordings with large followings of fans willing to purchase them. In addition, the huge crowds that turned up to these concerts made the effective policing of the audience for the presence of recording equipment virtually impossible. Vast numbers of recordings were issued for profit by bootleg labels.

Some Pink Floyd bootlegs exist in several variations with differing sound quality and length because sometimes listeners have recorded different versions of the same performance at the same time. Pink Floyd was a group that protected its sonic performance, making recording with amateur recording devices difficult. In their career, Pink Floyd played over 1,300 concerts, of which more than 350 were released as bootlegged recordings (sometimes in various versions). Few concerts have ever been broadcast (or repeated once they were broadcast on television), especially during 'the golden age' of the group from 1966 to 1981.

Embryo (1976 film)

Embryo is a 1976 science fiction horror film directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Rock Hudson alongside Barbara Carrera, with a cameo appearance by Roddy McDowall. It deals with the mental and physical consequences of growing a human embryo in an artificial uterus.

Plot

Dr. Paul Holliston (Hudson) is a geneticist who has been living alone in his rambling clinic, which he operates out of his home, after losing his wife in a car crash. This leads to his feeling constant pangs of guilt from his sister-in-law Martha Douglas (Diane Ladd), who has become his assistant.

One night, Holliston runs over a pregnant doberman dog. The dog is fatally injured, but Holliston manages to save one of her unborn puppies by gestating it in an artificial uterus. Because the device still requires nutrients to be supplied by the mother, he must drastically shorten the gestation period: to this end, he uses an experimental growth hormone made from human placental lactogen, which speeds up the embryo's growth.