Hummer

Hummer was a brand of trucks and SUVs, first marketed in 1992 when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee. In 1998, General Motors (GM) purchased the brand name and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the military Humvee, as well as the H2 and H3 models that were based on smaller, civilian-market GM platforms.

By 2008, Hummer's viability in the economic downturn was being questioned, and it was placed under review by GM management. Rather than being transferred to Motors Liquidation Company as part of the GM bankruptcy in 2009, the brand was retained by GM, in order to investigate its sale.

In 2009, a Chinese manufacturer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, announced that it would acquire Hummer, pending government approvals, but later withdrew its bid. On February 24, 2010, Reuters reported that the Chinese ministry of commerce had prevented the deal, although a ministry spokesperson denied rejecting the application, which had been stalled for eight months. At the end of February, General Motors announced it would begin dismantling the Hummer brand.

The Hummer

The Hummer is the ninth solo album by Canadian musician Devin Townsend, and his second ambient album. It was released on Townsend's label, HevyDevy Records, on November 15, 2006.

Music

The album chiefly consists of interwoven low frequency sounds, flute, morse code and ocean sounds, as well as audio samples from sources such as a reading by Leonard Cohen of part of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Ravi Shankar, and the 1997 science fiction film Contact. This is a quiet, reflective work in the vein of meditative music, and provides a stark antithesis to the aggressive heavy metal stance adopted by one of Townsend's other projects - Strapping Young Lad. Townsend describes it as "much more user friendly than the Devlab...still; some people are going to think it's just buzzing and humming noises, so again...it's not for everybody."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Devin Townsend. 

Personnel

References

Hummer (Foals song)

"Hummer" is the second single by Foals, and is the first single with Yannis Philippakis on lead vocals (previous lead vocalist was Andrew Mears). It was released on 12 March 2007. It was recorded and mixed by producer Gareth Parton at The Fortress and Metropolis recording studios, London. It was released as a digital download and on vinyl on 23 April 2007.

Although initially released as a non-album single, it was added as a bonus track to later editions of Foals' debut album Antidotes.

The song was featured in the first series of Skins.

Critical reception

In an 8/10 review, Drowned In Sound described the track as sounding "like Animal Collective rifling through The Rapture’s audio files on electro night". It came 12th in a top tracks of 2007 list compiled by NME. In October 2011, NME placed it at number 142 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".

Track listing

References

External links

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a biomedical research facility primarily located in Bethesda, Maryland. An agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, it is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. The NIH both conducts its own scientific research through its Intramural Research Program (IRP) and provides major biomedical research funding to non-NIH research facilities through its Extramural Research Program.

With 1,200 principal investigators and more than 4,000 postdoctoral fellows in basic, translational, and clinical research, the IRP is the largest biomedical research institution in the world, while, as of 2003, the extramural arm provided 28% of biomedical research funding spent annually in the U.S., or about US$26.4 billion.

The NIH comprises 27 separate institutes and centers that conduct research in different disciplines of biomedical science. The IRP is responsible for many scientific accomplishments, including the discovery of fluoride to prevent tooth decay, the use of lithium to manage bipolar disorder, and the creation of vaccines against hepatitis, Haemophilus influenzae (HIB) and human papillomavirus (HPV).

Nih (town)

Nih was a town belonging to the ancient state of Sistan, which straddles the modern border of Afghanistan and Iran.

In his 1930 book The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Guy Le Strange wrote:

At some distance to the west of the Zarah lake, on the Kuhistan frontier and close to the border of the Great Desert, is the town of Nih, or Nîh, which is named by earlier Arab geographers as belonging to Sîstân. Muķaddasî mentions it as a strongly fortified town, the houses of which were built of clay, water being brought down from the hills by underground channels. Nih is also referred to by Yâķût and Mustawfî, who, however, add no details, except to state that it was founded by King Ardashîr Bâbgân, though at the present day the remains of great fortifications, and the immense ruins found here, would seem to prove that in the middle-ages it had been a place of much importance.

References

Mirfentanil

Mirfentanil is a fentanyl derivative with strong selectivity for the μ opioid receptor. At lower doses, it antagonizes the analgesic effects of alfentanil and substitutes for naloxone in morphine-treated monkeys; however, it also reverses naloxone-precipitated withdrawal in pigeons trained to discriminate morphine from naloxone.

At high doses, it exhibits analgesic activity which is not fully reversed by opioid antagonists, suggesting that the drug has both opioid and non-opioid mechanisms of action.

Side effects of fentanyl analogs are similar to those of fentanyl itself, which include itching, nausea and potentially serious respiratory depression, which can be life-threatening. Fentanyl analogs have killed hundreds of people throughout Europe and the former Soviet republics since the most recent resurgence in use began in Estonia in the early 2000s, and novel derivatives continue to appear.

Synthesis

Mirfentanil was synthesized via acylation of the product of the reaction of 2-chloropyrazine and 1-(2-phenylethyl)-4-piperidinone oxime with 2-Furoyl chloride.