My Science School

The majority of the plot of ‘Night at the Museum’ takes place inside the American Museum of Natural History in Central Park West, Manhattan, New York City. As the world’s largest natural history museum, the location needs no introduction as an iconic New York City landmark.

However, while the American Museum of Natural History is a prominent backdrop in the movie, the majority of the filming did not actually take place on location. As a major public attraction and archive for countless historical, cultural and scientific artifacts, filming an entire action movie inside the premises of the institution was never going to be a realistic option. Instead, the majority of the filming took place on a specially constructed studio in British Columbia, Canada.

The external shots for the museum in the movie were filmed on location at the American Museum of Natural History in Central Park West at 79th Street, Manhattan. The museum is a truly iconic New York institution established over one and a half centuries ago in 1869. The complex comprises twenty-six interconnected buildings with 45 exhibition halls, a planetarium, and a massive library. The museum houses over 34 million specimens of animals, plants, fossils, minerals, meteorites, and various cultural artifacts. The American Museum of Natural History is also a veritable academic institution with a full-time scientific staff of over to hundred experts and over a hundred sanctioned field expeditions each year.

Credit : The Cinemaholic 

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When Pixar’s Finding Nemo was released in 2003, it unleashed a tidal wave of demand for the cute orange clownfish, the species that the character Nemo is based on. Sales of clownfish rose as much as 40%, according to some estimates. Some scientists were concerned that the population of the fish would be severely depleted if too many were caught in the wild. Aquarists, however, soon figured out how to breed clownfish in captivity, reducing the impact of lots of them being taken from coral reefs.

Now, scientists are bracing for Nemo’s sequel, Finding Dory, which will be released on  June 17. Dory is a blue tang. Unlike the clownfish, scientists and aquarists have not been able to breed the blue tang in captivity so far. That’s led to worries that now this species could face severe pressure from overcollecting on reefs (primarily in the Indo-Pacific, one of the world’s top sources for wild tropical fish), if movie viewers turn out to be as interested in owning pet blue tangs as they were in owning clownfish.

Regal blue tangs (the name we're going with in this article) are identified by their bright blue coloring, oval bodies and yellow, flag-shaped tails. Their pectoral fins are also yellow. Adults have a narrow line of dark blue along their dorsal fin that curves back at the tail. Its resemblance to the numeral 6 gives the fish one of its descriptive names.

Coloration changes as regal blue tangs mature, according to the Animal Diversity Web (ADW). Though in "Finding Dory," baby Dory was blue with a yellow tail, in real life juvenile blue tangs are bright yellow with blue spots by their eyes, and their fins have light blue tips. Their bodies become blue as they mature.

Surgeonfish get their name from the scalpel-like spines along the top and bottom of their bodies. These fish have a sharp and venomous spine at the base of their caudal fin, or tail fin, to protect themselves from predators. The caudal spine contains a toxin that can cause severe pain, to small predators as well as humans.

Adult regal blue tang fish typically weigh around 21.15 ounces (600 grams) and are 4.72 to 14.96 inches (12 to 38 centimeters) long. Males are typically larger than females, according to the ADW.

Credit : Live Science

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Spider-Man, comic-book character who was the original everyman superhero. In Spider-Man’s first story, in Marvel Comics’ Amazing Fantasy, no. 15 (1962), American teenager Peter Parker, a poor sickly orphan, is bitten by a radioactive spider. As a result of the bite, he gains superhuman strength, speed, and agility along with the ability to cling to walls. Writer Stan Lee and illustrator Steve Ditko created Spider-Man as a filler story for a canceled anthology series. At the time, a teenage lead hero was unheard of in comic books. However, young readers responded powerfully to Peter Parker, prompting an ongoing title and, ultimately, a media empire, including video games, several animated and one live-action television series, a live-action film franchise, and a Broadway musical.

Spider-Man was a radical departure from the established conventions of the comic-book superhero: he was a teenage character who was not relegated to sidekick status beside an older, more-experienced hero. In addition to enhanced speed and strength, Parker also possessed a precognitive “spider sense” that alerted him to approaching dangers. Using his inborn scientific talents, Parker synthesized a unique adhesive “web fluid” and built a pair of wrist-mounted web-shooters that enabled him to shape the webbing into various useful forms. He also designed and sewed the web-festooned red-and-blue costume that quickly became Spider-Man’s most visible trademark.

However, Marvel publisher Martin Goodman was not initially receptive to the idea of a teen hero taking centre stage, nor did he want to accept Spider-Man’s neuroses, romantic deficiencies, and chronic concerns about money. Goodman also thought that the audience would be repelled by the character’s spider motif. Fortunately, Lee’s instincts prevailed. Spider-Man’s debut in Amazing Fantasy was an immediate and resounding success.

Credit : Britannica 

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The small, provincial town where Beauty lives with her father and siblings is one of the central locations in the plot. The picturesque French villages of Riquewihr and Ribeauvillé inspired Belle’s home town in Disney’s 1992 animated adaptation of the novel, while the town in the 2017 film adaptation of the novel was inspired by the French Medieval village of Conques.

The Beast’s castle, which is set in one of France’s wild and dense forests, is another important location; the castle is described as dark and gloomy on the outside but warmer and more inviting on the inside, which is a reflection of the Beast’s character.

The grand and elegant Renaissance castle Château de Chambord, situated in the Loire Valley, was the inspiration for the Beast’s castle in Disney’s classic.

Some scholars believe that the tale of Beauty and the Beast is among literary works with the longest history. It’s possible that it’s based on the legend of Cupid and Psyche, which can be found in the Latin novel Metamorphoses. 

This myth, written by Apuleius in the second century CE, is one of the oldest stories, and many consider it to be the first-ever fairy tale.

Credit : Fiction Horizon

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Marley & Me is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by David Frankel from a screenplay by Scott Frank and Don Roos, based on the 2005 memoir of the same name by John Grogan. The film stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as the owners of Marley, a Labrador retriever. Marley & Me was released in the United States and Canada on December 25, 2008, and set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales. The film was followed by a 2011 direct-to-video prequel, Marley & Me: The Puppy Years.

Because the film covers 14 years in the life of the dog, 22 different yellow labradors played the part of Marley (as revealed in the special feature Finding Marley on the DVD).

The film was shot on location in Florida's West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Miami, and Dolphin Stadium, in addition to Philadelphia and West Chester in Pennsylvania. The Irish honeymoon scenes were shot in and around Ballynahinch Castle, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.

The film's score was composed by Theodore Shapiro, who previously had worked with director Frankel on The Devil Wears Prada. He recorded it with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox.

Dave Barry, Grogan's fellow South Florida humor columnist, makes an uncredited cameo as a guest at the surprise party celebrating Grogan's 40th birthday.

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East High Basketball Team, the Wildcats, is one of the many organizations at East High. The team's captain is Troy Bolton. Their saying is "Get'cha Head in the Game". The team is state champions over the West High Knights.

In the beginning of the movie it is shown that Jack and Troy have a really close father-son and coach-player relationship. Troy also inherited some of Jack's ways when he groans about going to the party. As the father of the star player he puts extra pressure on Troy to excel. Their relationship gets strained when Jack does not initially approve of Troy and Gabriella's relationship, worrying that Gabriella might distract Troy from the basketball game. Eventually, though, he accepts her and supports Troy doing the musical. He celebrates with his son after they win the championship.

When Troy begins working at the Lava Springs Country Club, Jack advises Troy to keep his eye on college. He also gives Troy his old truck. This advice backfires as Troy became arrogant and acts very entitled. Jack then again gives Troy advice when Troy tells nobody likes him anymore and he tells Troy that the son he raised will figure it out. Jack is last seen at Midsummer's Night Talent Show with his wife and they enjoy Troy sing on stage.  

The film opens with Jack's Wildcats basketball team trailing behind the West High Knights in the Championship and final game of the season. At the half, Jack tells his players no more x and o's and point out to his four seniors only one number matters sixteen as they only have that minutes left in a wildcat uniform. Later that night at the post-game party, held at Bolton's house, Troy tells Gabriella that Jack's dream is to have his son follow in his footsteps and attend his alma mater. Jack is once again angry with Troy when he learns Troy is considering other schools besides the University of Albuquerque; however, he comes to terms with Troy's decision to enroll at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Pandora is the fifth moon of the gas giant Polyphemus (both names reference figures in Greek mythology), which orbits Alpha Centauri A in the Alpha Centauri System, the closest star system to our own sun.

Discovered by space telescopes at some point between 2050 and 2077, Pandora has been the single most interesting thing to happen to the human race in hundreds of years. The news services love to run clips of the wild scenery on Pandora and its bizarre flora and fauna.

To the cultures of Earth, Pandora is mysterious, primal and terrifying. Even from orbit, the scope of florae present on the surface indicates a moon brimming with life. One of the creatures on Pandora is the direhorse, a gray-skinned, hexapodal horse-like animal with bioluminescent qualities that the Na'vi ride when hunting. The Na'vi also ride the mountain banshee to hunt from the air, but the hunter can become prey in the presence of the great leonopteryx. In the canopy below, other deadly yet exotic animals roam: vicious packs of viperwolves, thick skinned hammerhead titanotheres and the most fearsome creature of all, the thanator. Other than the richness of varying colors, the trees resemble those of Earth. They have the familiar trunks, branches and leaves, though due to the difference in gravity, many of the shapes appear strange to humans and the proportions are greater because of the lower gravity. The trees and plant life of Pandora have formed electrochemical connections between their roots and effectively act as neurons, creating a moon-wide "brain" that has achieved sentience, which is known to the Na'vi as Eywa.

Pandora, despite being almost as large as Earth, is only a moon of the gas giant Polyphemus, which has thirteen other moons. However, due to the smaller size, its gravity is 20% less than Earth's. Due to Pandora's lower gravity, most creatures on Pandora are hexapods (six-legged), although the Na'vi resemble humans and have only two legs. Creatures roam the air and forest canopy below, similar to Earth's animals, but on a scale several times larger. Pandora's wildlife also have bioluminescent qualities. Depending on the position of the various moons, Pandora can have two or even three moons in its sky at once. Pandora and the other moons cast large black shadows on Polyphemus.

Pandora looks like a lush paradise by Earth standards during the day, but at night, virtually all life on the moon exhibits bioluminescent qualities in various shades of blue, purple and green. This possibly explains the Na'vi's blue skin color, which most likely provides them better camouflage at night on Pandora.

Credit : Fandom

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The catchphrase used by Buzz Lightyear in 'Toy Story' has been voted as the best movie quotes of all-time in a UK poll.

Buzz Lightyear's trademark catchphrase of "To infinity...and beyond!" from the animated movie was named as UK's favorite movie quote of all time, the Independent reported.

Michael Caine's line in 1969 British comedy, 'The Italian Job', "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" came close second in the poll conducted by Radio Times.

Third position in the list was secured by Al Pacino's "Say hello to my little friend" as Tony Montana in 'Scarface' whereas lines from Roy Schneider in 'Jaws' and Clark Gable in 'Gone With The Wind' grabbed the fourth and fifth spot respectively.

The poll got more than 2,500 film entries from fans where editors finalized the top ten.

Credit : Business Standard 

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Puss in Boots is a main character in the Shrek franchise, also being portrayed as the title character and protagonist of the film Puss in Boots (2011). He made his first appearance in the film Shrek 2 (2004), soon becoming Shrek's partner and helper (alongside Donkey). In the film Shrek the Third (2007), Puss helps Shrek find the heir to the throne of the Far Far Away Kingdom. The film Shrek Forever After (2010) is primarily set in an alternate universe, where Puss is Princess Fiona's pet and has gained weight after his retirement. In the spin-off and prequel Puss in Boots, his origins are described. Puss also appears in the Netflix television series centered on him, The Adventures of Puss in Boots (2015–2018).

Puss was inspired by the title character of the fairy tale "Puss in Boots". His design, created by Tom Hester, was based on real cats. Several characters were used as inspirations for Puss's characterization, such as Zorro and Indiana Jones. The idea of Puss as the protagonist of a film was explored after his debut appearance. Antonio Banderas voices Puss in the English, Spanish, and Italian dubs of the Shrek franchise. While he initially tried a high-pitched voice for the character, he and the Shrek 2 filmmakers decided on a tone that was deeper than his normal voice. Banderas said that voicing Puss was an important part of his career. Eric Bauza provides Puss's voice in The Adventures of Puss in Boots.

The character has received generally positive reviews, with critics praising his depiction and considering him a source of comic relief. Reviewers have regarded Puss as a popular Shrek character. Banderas's voice acting has also been praised. Merchandise inspired by the character has been produced.

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Emoticon, glyph used in computer-mediated communications that is meant to represent a facial expression in order to communicate the emotional state of the author. When the Internet was entirely text-based, between the late 1960s and the early 1990s, emoticons were rendered in ASCII and were read sideways, as the “smiley” indicates. The word emoticon comes from a contraction of the words emotional icon.

Although it has been claimed that the first emoticon appeared in 1979, the first substantiated use of an emoticon came from American computer scientist Scott E. Fahlman on September 19,1982. He suggested that could indicate humorous posts on a message board and could indicate serious posts.

The use of emoticons has caused controversy online. Critics of emoticons argue that they erode the ability of people to communicate clearly and use language creatively in cyberspace, as well as in other forms of writing. Some have said that they are a lazy means of communication. Others note that they negatively affect the credibility of the author in an e-mail message.

Emoticon supporters insist, however, that they help online communication more than they hurt it. At their most basic level, emoticons are perhaps the crudest attempts to address the issue of emotion and feelings among users in computer environments in the absence of the high-bandwidth capacities of live face-to-face contact. They stand in for nonverbal communication in text and e-mail communication and clarify the tone of the message without the need for lengthy exposition.

Credit : Britannica 

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A Canadian has won the coveted Dancing With the Stars Mirrorball trophy.

The Mirrorball Trophy is a championship trophy given to the winning couple at the end of each season.

Mirrorballs were first widely used in nightclubs in the 1920s. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, these devices were a standard piece of equipment in discotheques. The trophy can either be two separate trophies for the star and pro or one singular trophy for the both of them. While usually silver, the winning couple of Season 20 was given a special gold mirrorball trophy in celebration of the show's tenth anniversary.

Tom Bergeron presents the mirrorball trophy to the winning couple after he announces the winner and the co-host interviews the runner-up of the season.

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"Friday" is a song performed by American singer Rebecca Black, written and produced by Los Angeles record producers Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson. It is Black's debut single. The song was originally released as a music video single on February 10, 2011; it was officially premiered as a single on iTunes on March 14, 2011.

Rebecca Renee Black (born June 21, 1997) is an American singer and YouTuber. She gained extensive media coverage when the music video for her 2011 single "Friday" went viral on YouTube and other social media sites. "Friday" was derided by many music critics and viewers, who dubbed it "the worst song ever". Black went on to release other songs including her Dave Days collaboration "Saturday". She currently uploads videos on her YouTube channel about various topics.

Black was born in Irvine, California. She is the daughter of John Jeffery Black and Georgina Marquez Kelly, both veterinarians. Her mother is of Mexican descent, and her father, originally from Iowa, is of English, Italian, and Polish descent. Black attended private school from kindergarten to 6th grade, and moved to a public school due to bullying. She joined the school's musical theater program, where she felt she was "meant to be". In April 2011, Black dropped out in favor of homeschooling, citing both a need to focus on her career and a desire to avoid taunts from her former classmates. Black has claimed that she was also failing English class due to her busy schedule.

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Captain Underpants (Principal Benjamin Krupp) is a superhero who is the star of the Captain Underpants novel series aimed at young readers.

Little is known about Principal Krupp's childhood, save that his favorite book is the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, minus the part where the Grinch redeems himself.  It is known that his parents were John and Bernice Krupp and he has a younger brother named Jasper.  Eventually, Krupp became the principal for Jerome Horwitz Junior High in Piqua, Ohio, where he became noted for his cruelty, unfairness and dislike of children.  He is particularly cruel to George Beard and Harold Hutchins, two students known for their love of comic books and are aspiring comic creators in their own right.  One of their creations is a comic book called "The Amazing Captain Underpants", which they sell on the schoolyard.  When he found evidence of them pulling a number of pranks at the school, he blackmailed them into doing a number of humiliating and spirit-draining tasks.

Pushed to the brink, George ordered a "3-D Hypno Ring" from the L'il Wiseguys novelty company and used it to hypnotize Krupp so they could get their hands back on the video and get out from under Krupp's thumb.  The ring worked and for revenge the boys used the ring to humiliate Krupp.  One of the humiliations was having them act like Captain Underpants (including wearing nothing but a cape and underpants), the character they created, only to find to their surprise that Krupp jumped out the window to start fighting crime.

As Captain Underpants, Krupp managed to stop a bank robbery, but only because the criminals wee incapacitated with laughter at the sight of the "hero".  The boys whisked away Krupp before the police could arrest him only to run into a villain named Dr. Diaper, who was planning to conquer the Earth by destroying the moon and every major city in the world.  Captain Underpants found himself captured while George and Harold retreated in order to think of a way to stop Dr. Diaper.  The Boys returned and manage to free Captain Underpants and working together managed to defeat Dr. Diaper.  Krupp is later seemingly returned to normal but it is soon discovered that Krupp returns to his Captain Underpants persona any time someone snaps their fingers.

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Facebook may be growing in popularity, but Google is still the web brand to beat.

In 2011, an average 153.4 million people in the U.S. visited Google sites each month, making the search giant the most-visited U.S. web brand of the year, according to Nielsen.

Facebook was the second most-visited U.S. web brand and the top social network, averaging 137.6 million visitors per month, Nielsen found. In the social networking and blogs category, Facebook beat out Blogger, Twitter (and of course Google+) by massive margins.

Nielsen looked at web traffic from home and work computers from January through October 2011 to determine the top web brands of year. The company’s data is limited to the desktop and does not include mobile visits, a category of growing importance as consumer browsing and social media behaviors switch over to mobile devices.

For comparison, Experian Hitwise published its list of most-visited sites and most-searched terms of the year, and gave Facebook the grand prize in both categories. Why the discrepancy? Facebook had more U.S. visits than Google.com, but if you combine visits to all Google properties — not just Google.com — Google actually had the edge over Facebook in 2011, according to Experian Hitwise. The companies are also measuring different things; Nielsen focused on individual visitors per month while Experian Hitwise looked at total visits for the year.

Nielsen’s numbers meanwhile paint a fairly consistent story. Even as far back as December 2009, Google ruled Nielsen’s U.S. web brand chart with 146.7 million unique visitors, and Yahoo ranked second with 129 million uniques. Somewhat surprisingly considering all its turmoil, Yahoo still maintains the third position as a top web brand and averages 130 million visitors per month.

The only real dramatic change to the list over the past two years is the ascendance of Facebook, which saw nearly 110 million unique visitors in December 2009 but now sees 137.6 million folks visit its website, on average, each month. Facebook, however, blows away the competition in terms of time on site. In September, Nielsen found that the average Facebooker spent 7 hours, 24 minutes on the site, while the average Googler clocked in at just one hour, 43 minutes for the month.

Credit : Venture Beat 

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Gregory "Greg" Heffley is a fictional character and the protagonist of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. He serves as the antihero and unreliable narrator of the series.

Like Greg, it is explained that Rodrick has no actual talents at all, is only good at a few things, mainly rock music, and spends most of his time on it, which drafts him away from schoolwork. He would much rather sleep for hours over doing anything else. Fitting with his love for heavy metal music, Rodrick is the lead drummer of a band called “Löded Diper”, a metal band. Its lead singer is a man whom Rodrick's parents are afraid he will become like: Bill Walter.

Rodrick is extremely lazy and careless when it comes to school, which explains where Greg gets his laziness. He almost never gets a grade above C-, except for his book reports, where however Frank does nearly all the work due to Rodrick's inability to type. Greg believes that Rodrick is lazy and unintelligent in all other areas, though there are clues that show otherwise. Rodrick clearly isn't the smartest of his family, since he hardly makes an effort at school and constantly asks his parents to do his work for him, as already mentioned. Sometimes he can even get rewarded for bad grades. When Greg was invited to a café by his parents as a reward for his great half-year report card with A's and B's on it, Rodrick was allowed to come too despite of his report card being as terrible as usual. Although Rodrick is portrayed in this manner, he is actually quite manipulative and intelligent in conning other people.

Rodrick is said by Greg to be a terrible speller (though he spelled everything right besides band names on his activity page in The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book) and is said to be completely ignorant about how to use any electronic device (although this may be more manipulation to get things done for him; he is clearly seen using a music player in Rodrick Rules and a cell phone in a flashback in Dog Days, and in The Ugly Truth it is shown that he uploads photos online and he is again seen using a music player once again in Hard Luck. He also messages his friends in “The Deep End). Rodrick did terribly back in elementary and middle school. He also thinks you can get bacon from pigs the same way eggs come from chickens.

The only reason Rodrick is doing slightly better at high school is that he cheats by having his dad do all the work for him, but in Hard Luck, it is said his first quarter didn't go well, meaning that his father might have stopped helping him. In the online book, Rodrick gets into a big fight with his dad in seventh grade, so he had to do a history paper himself. Greg buys that paper and flunks it. He is shown to misspell a lot of words even in the recent books, like for example, in Dog Days and the online book, when they got Sweetie (the dog), Rodrick went and got the dog a bowl that says "Sweaty". In The Long Haul, he thought a safe is a microwave and bacon comes from pigs in the same way that eggs from chickens.

Even though Rodrick is often lazy, mean, careless, and irresponsible, he is shown to have a softer side at times, as seen where he can occasionally treat Greg nicely and the brothers get along. They also do some stuff together.

During the most recent books, he tends to be more responsible and treats his family nicely with respect.

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