The real ( /reɪˈɑːl/; Brazilian Portuguese: [ʁeˈaw]; pl. reais) is the present-day currency of Brazil. Its sign is R$ and its ISO code is BRL. It is subdivided into 100 centavos ("hundredths").

The modern real was introduced in 1994 as part of the Plano Real, a substantial monetary reform package that aimed to put an end to three decades of rampant inflation. At the time it was meant to have approximately fixed 1:1 exchange rate with the United States dollar. It suffered a sudden devaluation to a rate of about 2:1 in 1999, reached almost 4:1 in 2002, then partly recovered and has been approximately 2:1 since 2006. The exchange rate as of January 22, 2012 is BRL 1.75 to USD 1.00.

In Portuguese the word real means both "royal" and "real". The name of the historic real derived from the first sense. The name of the modern currency is generally understood to refer both to the historic unit and to the second sense.^{[citation needed]}

The dollar-like sign (cifrão) in the currency's symbol (both historic and modern), and in all the other past Brazilian currencies, is officially^{[citation needed]} written with two vertical strokes (Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathrm{S}\!\!\!\Vert ) rather than one. However Unicode considers the difference to be only a matter of font design, and does not have a separate code for the two-stroked version.

Long hair is a hairstyle. Exactly what constitutes long hair can change from culture to culture, or even within cultures. For example, a woman with chin-length hair in some cultures may be said to have short hair, while a man with the same length of hair in some of the same cultures would be said to have long hair.

Scientists view long hair as playing a large part in natural selection among many species, since long, thick and healthy hair or fur is frequently a sign of fertility and youth. As hair grows slowly, long hair reveals several years of a person's health status and reproductive fitness. Hair length is significantly correlated with female attractiveness, as rated by men as well as women. Hair length and quality can act as a cue to especially a woman's youth and health, signifying reproductive potential. The prevalence of trichophilia (hair partialism or fetischism) is 7% in the population, and very long hair is a common subject of devotion in this group.

Ways of life often viewed as more rigid, such as soldiers and religious cultures, often have explicit rules regarding hair length. For example, Buddhist monks shave their heads as part of their order of worship. Even outside religious structures, cultures often associate male long hair with ways of life outside of what is culturally accepted. Subservient cultures, for example, are sometimes detected by their rulers through hair length, as was the case with the Gaelic Irish under English rule and the Moors under Spanish rule in Medieval Spain.