featured Wiki of the Day Abulsme Productions

Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.

The featured article for Thursday, 9 May 2024 is Horned sungem.

The horned sungem (Heliactin bilophus) is a species of hummingbird native to much of central Brazil and parts of Bolivia and Suriname. It prefers open habitats such as savanna and grassland and readily occupies human-created habitats such as gardens. It recently expanded its range into southern Amazonas and Espírito Santo, probably as a result of deforestation; few other hummingbird species have recently expanded their range. The horned sungem is a small hummingbird with a long tail and a comparatively short, black bill. The sexes differ markedly in appearance, with males sporting two feather tufts ("horns") above the eyes that are shiny red, golden, and green. Males also have a shiny blue head crest and a black throat with a pointed "beard". The female is plainer and has a brown or yellow-buff throat. It is the only species within its genus, Heliactin.

The horned sungem is a nomadic species, moving between areas in response to the seasonal flowering of the plants on which it feeds. It relies on a broad variety of flowering plants for nectar. If the shape of the flower is incompatible with the bird's comparatively short bill, it may rob the nectar through a little hole at the base of the flower. The sungem does also consume small insects. Only the female builds the nest, incubates the eggs, and rears the chicks. She lays two white eggs in a small cup nest which are incubated for about 13 days. The chicks are naked and black after hatching, and can fly when 20 to 22 days old. The horned sungem has been reported to readily defend territories both against members of its own species and against subordinate hummingbird species. The species is currently classified as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and its population is thought to be increasing.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:07 UTC on Thursday, 9 May 2024.

For the full current version of the article, see Horned sungem on Wikipedia.

This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

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Until next time, I'm Justin Neural.

Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.

The featured article for Wednesday, 8 May 2024 is Anna Blackburne.

Anna Blackburne (baptised Anne Blackburne; 1726 – 30 December 1793) was an English botanist and collector who assembled an extensive collection of natural history specimens and corresponded with several notable naturalists of her era. Blackburne was born at Orford Hall, Orford, Warrington, Lancashire, into a family of landowners and merchants. After her mother's death, she lived at Orford with her father John Blackburne, who was known for his interest in botany and his hothouses for exotic plants. John Blackburne also had an extensive library where Anne probably studied botany; she later taught herself Latin so she could read the Systema Naturae of Carl Linnaeus. She developed a natural history museum where she collected insects, shells, minerals and birds. She regularly met with the naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster while he was teaching at Warrington Academy. Forster instructed her in entomology and helped with her insect collection.

Blackburne corresponded with other naturalists including Linnaeus, to whom she sent a box of birds and insects. Her brother Ashton, who lived in New York, sent her specimens of North American birds. The Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant studied these bird specimens and included them in his book Arctic Zoology. After her father's death, Blackburne and her museum moved to nearby Fairfield Hall. When she died in 1793, her nephew John Blackburne inherited the collection. Several species are named after Blackburne, including the beetle Geotrupes blackburnii, the Blackburnian warbler and the flowering plant Blackburnia pinnata, now called Zanthoxylum pinnatum.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:48 UTC on Wednesday, 8 May 2024.

For the full current version of the article, see Anna Blackburne on Wikipedia.

This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.

Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.

Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.

Until next time, I'm Ruth Neural.

Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.

The featured article for Tuesday, 7 May 2024 is The Structure of Literature.

The Structure of Literature is a 1954 book of literary criticism by Paul Goodman, the published version of his doctoral dissertation in the humanities. The book proposes a mode of formal literary analysis that Goodman calls "inductive formal analysis": Goodman defines a formal structure within an isolated literary work, finds how parts of the work interact with each other to form a whole, and uses those definitions to study other works. Goodman analyzes multiple literary works as examples with close reading and genre discussion.

The main points of Goodman's dissertation were made in a 1934 article on aesthetics by the author, who studied with the philosopher Richard McKeon and other neo-Aristotelians at the University of Chicago. Goodman finished his dissertation in 1940, but it was only published in 1954 by the University of Chicago Press at McKeon's behest. Reviews aggregated in Book Review Digest were mixed. Critics described the book as falling short of its aims, with engaging psychological insight and incisive asides mired in glaring style issues and jargon that made passages impenetrable or obscured his argument. Though Goodman contributed to the development of what became known as the University of Chicago's Chicago School of Aristotelian formal literary criticism, he neither received wide academic recognition for his dissertation nor was his method accepted by his field.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Tuesday, 7 May 2024.

For the full current version of the article, see The Structure of Literature on Wikipedia.

This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.

Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.

Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.

Until next time, I'm Geraint Standard.

Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.

The featured article for Monday, 6 May 2024 is Take Ichi convoy.

The Take-Ichi sendan (竹一船団, "Bamboo No. One" convoy) was a Japanese convoy of World War II. The convoy left Shanghai on 17 April 1944, carrying two infantry divisions to reinforce Japan's defensive positions in the Philippines and western New Guinea. United States Navy (USN) submarines attacked the convoy on 26 April and 6 May, sinking four transports and killing more than 4,000 soldiers. These losses caused the convoy to be diverted to Halmahera, where the surviving soldiers and their equipment were unloaded.

The Take Ichi convoy's losses had important strategic results. The failure to bring the two divisions to their destination without loss contributed to the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters' decision to move Japan's defensive perimeter back by 1,000 km (600 mi). The divisions' combat power was also blunted by their losses, and while they both saw action against United States Army forces, they contributed little to Japan's attempt to defend its empire.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:31 UTC on Monday, 6 May 2024.

For the full current version of the article, see Take Ichi convoy on Wikipedia.

This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.

Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.

Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.

Until next time, I'm Salli Standard.

Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.

The featured article for Sunday, 5 May 2024 is Can I Get It.

"Can I Get It" is a song by the English singer Adele from her fourth studio album 30 (2021), written with Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback. The song became available as the album's sixth track on 19 November 2021, when it was released by Columbia Records. A pop song with pop rock and country pop influences, "Can I Get It" has acoustic guitar, drum, and horn instrumentation and a whistled hook. The song is about moving on from a breakup and explores Adele's search for true love and the thrilling and wondrous parts of a new relationship.

"Can I Get It" received mixed reviews from music critics, who were generally positive about its acoustic portion and lyrics, but highly criticised its whistled hook. They thought the song's brazen pop production catered to the tastes of mainstream radio, which made it an outlier on 30, and compared it to Flo Rida's single "Whistle" (2012). It reached the top 20 in Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Finland, and Norway and entered the top 40 in some other countries.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Sunday, 5 May 2024.

For the full current version of the article, see Can I Get It on Wikipedia.

This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.

Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.

Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.

Until next time, I'm Aria Neural.

Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.

The featured article for Saturday, 4 May 2024 is Dorothy Olsen.

Dorothy Eleanor Olsen (née Kocher; July 10, 1916 – July 23, 2019) was an American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II. She grew up on her family's farm in Woodburn, Oregon, developing an interest in aviation at a young age. She earned her private pilot's license in 1939, when it was unusual for women to be pilots.

In 1943, Olsen joined the newly formed WASPs as a civil service employee. After training in Texas, she was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California, where she worked ferrying new aircraft from the factories where they were built to U. S. airbases. She flew more than 20 types of military airplanes, including high-performance fighters such as the P-51 Mustang and the twin-engine P-38 Lightning, which she favored over larger aircraft such as bombers; she was particularly fond of the P-51.

After the war, Olsen retired from flying and moved to Washington State, where she married, raised a family, and lived for the rest of her life. In 2009, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal honoring her service during the war. Olsen died in 2019 aged 103.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:09 UTC on Saturday, 4 May 2024.

For the full current version of the article, see Dorothy Olsen on Wikipedia.

This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.

Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.

Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.

Until next time, I'm Joanna Neural.