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An example of a stereotypical villain. A villain is a bad person, especially in fiction. Villains are the fictional characters, or perhaps fictionalized characters, in drama and melodrama who work to thwart the plans of the hero. There are many villain stereotypes. In the era before sound in motion pictures villains had to appear very "visually" sinister, and thus many villain stereotypes were born.

Photo credit: J.J. McCullough
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The Dry Tortugas are a small group of islands, located at the end of the Florida Keys, USA. As seen easily in the photo, the clear waters in shallow areas surrounding Fort Jefferson are popular for snorkeling and scuba diving. Visible on the right side of the image is a breach of the sea wall caused by the direct strike of Hurricane Charley in August 2004.

Photo credit: National Park Service Digital Image Archives
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Blue Morpho butterfly. A butterfly is a flying insect of the order Lepidoptera. As Lepidoptera, butterflies have four wings, but unlike moths, the fore and hindwings are not hooked together, permitting a more graceful flight. Unlike most insects, butterflies do not experience a nymph period, but instead go through a pupal stage.

Photo credit: Gregory Phillips.
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Bang Pa-In is one of the 16 amphoe of Ayutthaya province, Thailand. The area is best known for the Bang Pa-In Royal Palace, a palace complex formerly used by the Thai kings as a summer dwelling. Most of the present buildings were constructed between 1872 and 1889 by King Chulalongkorn.

This image depicts the Aisawan Thiphya-Art (Divine Seat of Personal Freedom), a pavilion constructed in the middle of a pond.

Photo credit: Dan Smith
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A panoramic photograph taken from the Tamar Bridge between Cornwall and Devon, England, showing the Tamar Valley and the Royal Albert Bridge. The Tamar Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the UK when it opened in 1961. In 2001 it became the world's first suspension bridge to be widened using cantilevers. The Royal Albert Bridge was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Photo credit: Tony Tapp
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Petrified wood is a type of fossil, in which the tissues of a dead plant are replaced with minerals (most often a silicate, like quartz). The petrifaction process occurs underground, when wood or woody materials suddenly become buried under sediment. Mineral-rich water flowing through the sediment deposits minerals in the plant's cells and as the plant's lignin and cellulose decays away, a stone cast is left in its place.

Photo credit: Daniel Schwen
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A gear is a toothed wheel designed to transmit torque to another gear or toothed component. Epicyclic gearing is a system consisting of outer gears, typically mounted on a movable arm, rotating about a central gear.

Photo credit: Wapcaplet
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The dragonfly is an insect belonging to the Order Odonata, Suborder Anisoptera and characterized by large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and an elongated body. Dragonflies typically eat mosquitoes, midges and other small insects like flies, bees, and butterflies. They are usually found around lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands for the reason that their larvae (known as nymphs) are aquatic. Dragonflies do not bite or sting humans. In fact, they are valued as a predator that helps control the insect populations.

Photo credit: User:Fir0002
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Dust storm, Spearman, Texas, 1935. A dust storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. The dust picked up in such a storm can be carried thousands of kilometers: Sahara dust storms influence plankton growth in the western Atlantic Ocean.

Photo credit: US NOAA
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The lake effect is particularly clear in this SeaWiFS true-color image of the North American Great Lakes region. Lakes Nipigon, Superior, and Michigan show striking contrasts between clear and cloudy air as the wind blows from the northwest across the lakes. Lake effect snow is produced in the winter when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, picking up water vapor which freezes and is deposited on the lee shores.

Photo credit: SeaWiFS, NASA

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The bumblebee is a flying insect of the genus Bombus in the family Apidae. Like the common honeybee, of which it is a distant relative, the bumblebee feeds on nectar and gathers pollen to feed its young. Bumblebees tend to be larger than other members of the bee family. Most, but not all, bumblebee species are gentle. Bumblebees are the pollinator of choice for modern greenhouse tomatoes and some other crops.

Photo credit: Mark Burnett
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This image depicts a row of vermilion-colored torii arches at the entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan. Thousands of these gates line the paths of the shrine. Successful Japanese businessmen have traditionally purchased a gate in gratitude to Inari, the god of fertility, rice, and foxes.

Photo credit: Paul Vlaar (15 Jul 2004)
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Physical map of physical geography of the Philippines. The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,107 islands. The largest of these islands is Luzon. The islands are volcanic in origin, being part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and are mostly mountainous. The highest point in the country is the peak of Mt. Apo in Mindanao, which is 2,954 m above sea level. Most of the islands used to be covered in tropical rainforests, however, due to illegal logging, the forest cover has been reduced to less than 10% of the total land area.

Image credit: Seav
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A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta (conifers) that contains the reproductive structures. The familiar woody cone is the seed-producing female cone. The male cones, which produces pollen, are usually herbaceous and much less conspicuous even at full maturity.

In this image, dozens of male cones (orange and flower-like) occur in a cluster, while the female cone is still immature (olive green).

Photo credit: User:Menchi
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The Yarra River is a river in southern Victoria, Australia. Its lower reaches travel through central Melbourne. It is approximately 242 kilometres in length, and its mean annual flow is 718,000 megalitres. Like virtually all of Australia's rivers, annual flows vary greatly due to the effect of El Niño. The river's source is a series of swamps on Mount Baw Baw. Some of the Yarra's major tributaries include the Plenty River, and the Merri Creek.

Photo credit: Russell Degnan
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The United States one-cent coin is a unit of currency equaling one 1/100 of a United States dollar. Its obverse has featured the profile of President Abraham Lincoln since 1909, the centennial of his birth. Since 1959, the reverse has featured the Lincoln Memorial.

This 2002 proof Lincoln cent epitomizes the cameo effect.

Photo credit: United States Mint
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The USS Iowa firing during target exercises near Vieques, Puerto Rico. USS Iowa (BB-61), the lead ship of her class of dreadnought battleship, was the fourth United States Navy ship with this name. Iowa was launched on 27 August 1942. As of 21 April 2001, Iowa is part of the Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, San Francisco.

Photo credit: Naval Historical Center
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The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil. It is the most numerous of the Spheniscus penguins. Its nearest relatives are the African Penguin, the Humboldt Penguin and the Galapagos Penguin. The main threat to this species is oil pollution which kills more than 20,000 adults and 22,000 juveniles every year off the coast of Argentina.

Photo credit: NASA (13 Mar 2004)
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Looking east along the Champs-Élysées from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs-Élysées is a broad avenue in the French capital Paris. With its cinemas, cafés, and luxury specialty shops, the Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets in the world. The name refers to the Elysian Fields, the kingdom of the dead in Greek mythology.

Photo credit: Michael Reeve
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The Treasury of the Athenians is a building at Delphi, the holiest of Ancient Greek sites and shrine to the god Apollo. Delphi was the site of Apollo's (one of the strongest and well-loved gods) oracle, and it was in response to a prophecy that the treasury was built. It was built with the spoils of the Battle of Salamis, won by Athens over Persia on account of that prophecy.

Photo credit: Smoddy
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Light pollution is excess or obtrusive light created by humans. This composite satellite image of the Earth at night shows the most urbanized areas glowing with city lights.

Photo credit: NASA and NOAA
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In dentistry, a pulpectomy is an endodontic treatment to cure an infection of the root canal. This illustration shows a cross section through the tooth at various stages of the procedure; unhealthy tooth, drilling, filing with endofile, rubber filling and crown.

Photo credit: Jeremy Kemp
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The Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis) is a common resident of coastal and sub-coastal eastern Australia, from the extreme south-east corner of South Australia through most of Victoria and the western half of New South Wales and north as far as Cooktown, though tropical northern Queensland birds are mainly restricted to the cool heights of the Great Dividing Range

Photo credit: Tony Wilson
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The plum is a stone-fruit tree in the genus Prunus. Its fruit is sweet, juicy and edible, and it can be eaten fresh, or dried, in which case they are known as prunes.

The plum blossom, along with the peony, are considered traditional floral emblems of China.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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In video games, particularly in first-person shooters, circlestrafing is the technique of moving around a target in a circle while facing it. It allows a player to fire continuously at a target while simultaneously dodging attacks. In this diagram, the blue player circlestrafes around his red adversary, firing continually as he does so. Red, unable to keep track of the moving blue, misses with most shots. Blue will prevail.

Photo credit: Fredrik
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Huntsman spiders are a common group of spiders found in Australia, New Zealand, and many other tropical and semi-tropical areas of the world. Huntsmen do not build webs but forage for food - mostly insects and other invertebrates. They do bite if provoked, but the victim will suffer only minor swelling and localised pain, recovering in a day or so.

Huntsmen can be identified by their legs, which rather than being jointed vertically relative to the body, are twisted such that the legs extend forward in a crab-like fashion.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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The asteroid 433 Eros was named after the Greek god of love Eros. This S-type asteroid is the second-largest near-Earth asteroid. This image shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its underside and toward the opposite end.

Photo credit: NASA
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Vitrification is a process of converting a material into a glass-like amorphous solid which is free of any crystalline structure, either by the quick removal or addition of heat or by mixing with an additive. In this case, vitrification is being studied as a method of nuclear waste disposal.

Photo credit: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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High cross at the Rock of Cashel in Ireland. A High Cross is a standing cross with a circle, made of stone and often richly ornamented. High Crosses exist in Celtic parts of Britain and Ireland; the Irish High Cross has become more famous because of its distinctive shape (the ringed Celtic Cross) and the amount and quality of decoration. The Rock of Cashel, also known as Cashel of the Kings, is situated in county Tipperary in Ireland.

Photo credit: Chmouel Boudjnah
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Long Beach is a city located in southern Los Angeles County, California, on the Pacific coast. The town grew as a seaside resort and then as an oil, Navy, and port town. The Port of Long Beach is the second busiest seaport in the United States and the tenth busiest port in the world.

Photo credit: PDphoto.org
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